Big. Big, big, big.

That’s what Gina Lollobrigida was in 1959 when she was the hottest, sexiest, most talked-about actress in the world. That’s what the movie Solomon and Sheba was too: a $6 million biblical spectacle directed by the legendary King Vidor, with grandiose sets, sumptuous costumes, and a star-studded cast. United Artists’ publicity budget alone for this extravaganza was $2 million (more than $20 million today).

But the biggest big was actually an oil painting, 40 feet wide and 11 feet high.

On a bitterly cold day in mid-November 1959 — before it wowed the Hollywood elite, before it toured the world, and before it mysteriously vanished — the largest single canvas oil painting in the world sat snugly behind red velvet curtains in the Grand Ballroom of Chicago’s 757-room Sherman Hotel. Clinks of glasses and murmurs of deal-making were heard in a haze of cigar smoke as models in clingy outfits inspired by the film mingled with married men. Everyone there agreed that UA’s costume designers had worked hard to get the very most out of the very least.

The film had had its 70mm grand premiere at the Astoria Theatre in London on Oct. 27, and now the promotional team had devised an innovative strategy to generate buzz for the American release: a colossal traveling painting that would be revealed at the 11th annual Theater Owners of America convention. Entertainment reporters were awarded solid gold Tiffany medallions with their names engraved for “unbiased” reporting. Prior to the convention, photos had been leaked of The World’s Most Beautiful Woman sitting for the artist in his Greenwich Village studio.

The unveiling came after the last bite of cheesecake. United Artists’ 46-year-old vice president Max Youngstein stepped forward as the lights dimmed. This would be the mightiest motion picture ever made, he declared, the first live-action film to use Super Technirama 70, which would provide a more cinematic experience. Youngstein pulled a cord and revealed the colossal canvas, a rich tableau featuring Yul Brenner as Solomon, the Israelite king, preparing to enter battle, and Gina Lollobrigida as the seductive queen Sheba, in a moment of intimate contemplation. Applause broke out in the room.

The following day, the public was permitted into the hotel, allowing Chicagoans to see the canvas before anyone else in the country. It would travel around the U.S. for about half a year.

Italian bombshell Gina Lollobrigida died this month at 95, and her lusty portrayal of Sheba was forever captured in the movie and the mural. But what about the tortured artist who painted that mural? And what became of the mural itself?

How could the world’s largest oil painting just disappear?

The man behind the mural

Symeon Shimin was a 57-year-old bohemian Jewish man haunted by his past. Six feet tall, lean and mustached, Shimin had spent his early childhood in the Russian city of Astrakhan, a thriving hub of trade and industry at the mouth of the Volga river. Here, east met west, and he later recalled caravans of camels plowing through the streets and streetcars that ran on electricity. The Shimins were wealthy; he lived in a large three-story European-style house with his grandparents, parents, two younger brothers, an infant sister, his two uncles, and his family’s household staff.

The early 1900s in Europe were terrifying times for Jews, even those with money. Symeon’s father, Nachman, a skilled cabinetmaker with a store, used antiques as bribes to protect his family and friends from conscription. His vzyatki (kickbacks) did the trick.

Symeon left his childhood home for good at the end of May 1912. After two weeks of cramped train travel to Latvia, the family boarded their ship with their steerage class tickets at Libau on the Baltic Sea (now Liepāja). A band played marches as the vessel slipped out onto the open sea. It was only weeks after the Titanic crash, and onboard, passengers were still anxious and talking about the disaster. When the sea misbehaved, it didn’t help. But after 14 rough days, the SS Russia arrived in New York at 5 a.m. on Jun. 26, 1912. Symeon and his family were greeted by his uncles — jeweler Paul and the musical Eli, bachelors who had served as the advance party.

The lives the family had led before were privileged, but not anymore. After tickets and bribes, all 32-year-old Nachman had was $150. The family moved into a miserable Lower East Side railroad flat. Nachman Shimin became Nathan Simkin, and Symeon Shimin became Samuel Simkin on his first day of public school.

Although demoralized and determined to return to Russia, Nachman’s relatives urged him to try a new career. He opened a delicatessen in Bushwick, Brooklyn. On the second day of the operation, Symeon’s baby sister Chaye died of the lingering pneumonia she had contracted on the ship.

Symeon’s orthodox education at the cheder had been devoid of math and other essential skills, and when he entered first grade at the age of