"For what does thine sanguine divine produce my African profile?"

As an example of the incorrect inverse problem, an attempt is made, for the particular case of A S Pushkin, to reconstruct human features with the hig hest probability possible via the analysis and synthesis of a set of painte d and verbal portraits. In the parameter space formed by informative anthro pometric measurements on the poet's portraits, an image comparison is carri ed out using weight factors obtained from the analysis of verbal descriptio ns and the painter's competence level and creative method. Using the 'ident ikit' and 'morphing' techniques tin which elements from different images ar e combined or superimposed, respectively), twelve archive paintings were us ed to synthesize new images. Of these, three seem to reproduce most accurat ely Pushkin's appearance at various life stages judged on expert analysis w ith account for verbal data and the departure of the anthropometric paramet ers from their averages.