Hakob Hovnatanyan was born in 1806 into the Hovnatanyan family of painters that included five generations of artists from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Hakob was a representative of the last generation of the Hovnatanyan painter, learning the arts from his father (an icon painter). The family descended from Shorot village, in Nakhichevan (old Armenia). Hakob himself was born in the old Tiflis...