Portrait of Comrade Stalin from a miniature by the artist Pravdin (of Palekh)
Source: Stalin v Pesnyax Narodov SSSR ("Stalin in Songs of the Peoples of the USSR"), Molodaya Gvardiya, 1936; frontispiece.

The artists of Palekh are famous for exquisite miniatures, especially on lacquered black boxes. In the years of Tsarist oppression, some were forced to waste their efforts on saints and similar objects of superstition. After the Revolution, however, they were free to adopt more wholesome and worthy themes, such as the one here.