Albanian artist makes world's biggest portrait

TIRANA (Albania): An Albanian artist has made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the biggest portrait, officials said.

Saimir Strati, 40, used more than 500,000 industrial nails to make a three-dimensional portrait of Italian renaissance painter Leonardo Da Vinci on a surface measuring eight square metres, said Scott Christie, a Guinness jury member.

"This is not just the biggest painting, it also has artistic value as the most beautiful done so far by an artist," art critic Zija Cela said.

The artist worked 14 hours a day for 24 days and was supervised by specialists and cameras while making the portrait in the hall of the former museum of the late communist dictator Enver Hoxha.