He may look vaguely like your genial elderly Grandpa :) but he's not!  He's "Karmesin, a master thief and self-confessed genius" - one of the "weird and wonderful people" Gerald Kersh met during his lifetime, and wrote about in novels and hundreds of short stories.  This is the original artwork created for the cover of one in Crippen & Landru's "The lost classic series" by Kersh, and edited by Paul Duncan,  the 1st edition published 2003 (I show the cover for your reference)  The tag line reads  " The World's Greatest Criminal or Most Outragious Liar" and whether or not he actually smoked cigars is irrelevant: we kind of expect him to!!  Handpainted in acrylics on unstretched canvas, 9" x 12" and signed by Heyer bottom right.