A full-size portrait of Russia's last tsar Nicholas II was put on display on Dec. 1 at the Museum of Applied Arts of the Stieglitz Art and Industry Academy.
The painting (1896) by Ilya Galkin was recently discovered on the reverse of the canvas used for a portrait of the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin by Vladislav Izmailovich (1924).
Primary School No. 206 asked for the portrait of the Bolshevik leader, which was ripped at the bottom, to be restored. When the Stieglitz Academy restorers took the painting out of the frame, they saw that the back of the canvas was covered with black water-soluble paint. Beneath the paint they found a well preserved portrait of Tsar Nicholas II.