Artist

Bern commissioned the oil-on-canvas work from Russian artist Alexander Ignatiev (identified in vintage press clippings as V. Ignatieff), a young studio artist who was approximately 18-years-old. A photo of the mural was published in a local newspaper at the time, and described the auspicious group as “disguised in Elizabethan garb,” and shows the mural as it hung in their home. The entire piece was formed on an angle to fit the wall and was cut around a large beam when it was originally installed.

Ignatiev was the son of a czarist general and left Russia with his family during the Revolution. He studied in San Francisco with Gleb Ilyin and later for four years at the Chouinard Art School. His Hollywood career included working for Walt Disney on films such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and later with the legendary Chuck Jones at Warner Bros., and finally for Hanna-Barbera. He was also a well-known watercolorist based in Laguna Beach, California. He passed away in 1995 never knowing what happened to the mural.

Lewis spoke with the artist’s widow and daughter last year and both women stated that Ignateiv was extremely proud of his creation. Lewis said that Mrs. Ignatiev also revealed that her husband had planned to remove the piece for Harlow himself, but before he could do the work he was wounded by gunfire in an unrelated altercation. The mural was gone by the time he fully recovered from surgery. Mrs. Ignatiev, who spoke with The Platinum Page via telephone earlier this year, said that Alexander would have been astonished and pleased to learn that the mural had survived all these years.

The painting has never been touched up, restored, or cleaned. It has been hanging on the interior walls of three residences (counting Jean Harlow's) since 1932. The colors show very bright and sharp when taken with my digital camera and built-in flash.

The room the painting hangs in is dimly lit and I never realized how bright the colors really were until I took these pictures. There are places where an occasional paint flake has come off, and the mural could stand to be stretched and re-hung. A new owner would probably benefit by having a professional restore and protect the surface of the piece. The small area on the upper left was added in by my grandfather to compensate for the cutout in the mural where the ceiling beam from Bern's house was.

Please note that all of the pictures I took of the mural have been cropped and/or resized only. I have done no post-processing of the digital pictures, no sharpening, no color enhancement of any kind.