Miniature portrait done in Bilbao, Spain in 1952 by Spanish miniaturist, Alberto Larrumbide y Zapata. Medium: Watercolor on ivory. Dimensions: Framed 7”x6”. Unframed 2.75”x3” Bought directly from the artist by my mother (the subject) in Bilbao, Spain in 1952 when she commissioned him to paint her portrait from live sittings and a photo. I inherited it when she passed in 2017. Larrumbide, born in Bilbao on March 26, 1909, died in 2005. He finished his high school studies in 1923, devoting himself to different activities, his main vocation being drawing. He is self-taught, as he has had no other teachers than those of drawing during the two years of high school. He is the only miniaturist considered by the highest art critics as a pictorial genius. His specialty is miniatures on ivory, and his favorite subjects are those in which nudes predominate -true pictorial jewels-, original and biblical themes. He also cultivates portraits in miniature and copies of famous paintings by painters such as El Greco, Velázquez, Goya, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Titian, etc. The form and technique of the miniature used by this painter is to do the work with very subtle brushes, with watercolor paint and on ivory sheets, generally using a magnifying glass for greater precision. He held about eighty exhibitions, spread between New York, Paris, Lisbon and different capitals of the peninsula. He began painting miniatures in 1932, holding his first exhibition, with resounding success, in Bilbao in 1939. Larrumbide has been awarded two medals, a First Prize and a Medal of Honor, for his work in Craftsmanship, in the Fine Arts section, in 1947 and 1948. His works can be found in museums and private collections in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Algiers, the United States, Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Montevideo.