IMPERIAL DOG ALERT
Great photo of Tsar Nicholas II’s Collie, Iman.
Valentin Serov
Portrait of Isaac Ilyich Levitan
1893
Nicholas II in his studio at the Lower Dacha, Peterhof
Princess Zenaida Youssoupoff with her sons, Felix and Nicholas.
Zenaida was one of her generation’s most beautiful (and wealthy) women. Her children grew up to be handsome men. Unfortunately, Nicholas Felixovich Yusupov (the eldest) was killed in a duel at the age of 26. Felix Felixovich Yusupov, her second son, lived a long and very eventful life and married the only niece of the Russian Tsar.
Guess who? Kaiser Wilhelm II in fancy dress again!
in all honesty to him, fancy dress balls were very popular at the time - others had as much fun dressing up as he did.
Dowager Empress María Feodorovna and grand Duchess Olga Nicholaevna
I really like this image. The expression of both women is so animated and there are so few pictures of Olga having this type of interaction with her grandmother.
Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich
Xenia was pregnant and they looked happy here. They had been in love since their teens. They had seven children. In the middle of her pregnancy with the seventh he chose to tell her he had a mistress.
He constantly asked her for a divorce to marry this or that woman.There was a wealthy American. There was the wife of a sculptor who was carving his bust. He wanted to run away to Australia with most of them. There was a young nurse, who already married and years after the relationship, nursed him as he was dying. By the time he was a fifty-something, Sandro was in love with and wanted to marry someone younger than his daughter. Irina begged her mother not to give him a divorce so that he would not embarrass himself.
What was Xenía going to do? She took lovers herself (I have only read of two.) Irina hated the first one, Fane. She suffered through her parents’ marital woes.
Close to the end of his life, he wanted to go back to Xenia (there is a letter from him to her stating so- he says the opposite in his book, of course.) She was too tired and said no.
Xenia and Sandro are buried together in the South of France.
Thomas Kent Pelham (English, 1831-1907)
Fisherwomen of the Basque Provinces
I saw this by chance and it means so much to me that I am going to leave it hanging here in my “Russian Livingroom” where it does not match the decor. My father and some of his family come from the Basque Country and I have always loved the bit of heritage I carry from there. I lived there for 4 years of my life which I will never forget. To me the Basque country is pure color, deep color, not bright. I have never seen greens, grays, browns running into each other like those. This painting captures the yellow-brown-ocres with a bit of green here and there so perfectly….Below a little map of that very different corner of the world.
Euskal Herria
The Russian Royalties at a picnic (or resting after a review of troops) - Notice on top photo, the Empress apparently in a playful mood.
In the photographs, left to right, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and her brother-in-law, Grand Duke George Mikhalovich; next, Grand Duchess Maria Georgevna, Tsar Nicholas II, Empress Maria Fyodorovna, the playful young man (whom I do not recognize), Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna and two individuals I cannot identify.
loiladadiani