Ivan Akimovich Sushchenko (Russian, B. 1930) "Christopher Columbus" Original Oil painting on Masonite. Provenance: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. This painting is the original which appeared on the $5 Columbus stamp Souvenir Sheet issued May 22, 1992. Until recently, history presented a rather simplistic, and arguably inaccurate, view of Christopher Columbus and his achievements. School children read that Queen Isabella of Spain pawned her jewels to finance his first voyage. They were also told that he actually discovered America, a term under which one massive continent falls. The truth is infinitely more interesting. Christopher Columbus was born in 1451 in Genoa, Italy, to Domenico Colombo and Susanna Fontanarossa. To this day, no one really knows what he even looked like. He went to sea as a youth, possibly as young as age 14 but more probably at age 19 or 20. His journeys took him to Africa, England and Ireland -- perhaps even to Iceland. He eventually settled in Portugal, marrying into one of the country's first families of exploration. Denied sponsorship for a voyage of discovery by the Portuguese king, Columbus turned to Spain. In 1492 he set sail to test his theory -- that the east could be reached by sailing west. Queen Isabella never had to pawn her jewels, and his first landfall in the New World fell on the beaches of present-day San Salvador, not on the continent of North America. For a few years he blazed brightly at the Spanish court. But eventually stripped of his honors and glory for bungling the administration of New World colonies, he died in 1506. This portrait is based upon a painting by Italian artist Lorenzo Lotto which is just one of the many renditions of Columbus. Image Size: 18.75 x 16.25 in. Overall Size: 22.75 x 20.25 in. Unframed. (B13766)