Although friends in the scientific community had tried unsuccessfully for several years to persuade Nesterov to paint the great man, when Nesterov met him in person he was instantly determined to create a portrait. He painted him working in the verandah of his house at Koltushi scientific “village” after which the work was acquired by the Institute of Experimental Medicine in St Petersburg at which Pavlov was head of the Physiology Department.
Nesterov later presented Pavlov with a duplicate copy of the painting, after which the original was donated to the Russian State Museum.