A chance listing on the Public Catalogue Foundation Art UK, for an oil on canvas painting (35.8 x 30.7 cm) said to be of Russia’s last Empress, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, when she was Princess Alix of Hesse (1872-1918) led me to investigate this extraordinary artwork further. Because in the many years I had researched on Princess Alix, I had never seen anything like it. It does not resemble…
In the British Library five letters from Princess Alix of Hesse, later Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia (1872-1918) are preserved. Initially, I thought there were seven letters of hers at the British Library, but further research has enabled me to establish that these…
In the summer of 1894, the Tsarevich Nicholas came to England as a guest of Queen Victoria, first staying for a brief few days with his fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse, at Walton-on-Thames before continuing to Windsor Castle. This was a blissful period for a young couple…
When Tsarevich Nicholas visited Windsor as a guest of Queen Victoria in the summer of 1894, he spent a brief time with his fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse, at Marlborough House, the London residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales on the Mall. As Nicholas wrote with glee to his mother, Empress Marie Feodorovna, that following his short visit to Sandringham, the Norfolk residence of the Prince…
In the summer of 1894, Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia came to stay at Walton-on-Thames, in the house which his fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse’s eldest sister, Victoria, Princess Louis of Battenberg and her husband, Prince Louis of Battenberg had rented. They would stay in…
On 29 May 1894, Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia wrote to his mother, Empress Marie Feodorovna, that he could see the sea from the room in which he was writing, in the imperial palace of Peterhof and that he had ‘such a longing for the yacht and want to fly there to join my…
During the time they were at Coburg, Princess Alix of Hesse and Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia became engaged, a date they would treasure for the rest of their lives – 8 April 1894. Whilst they were in Coburg, visited the theatre and saw an operetta of which they would become affectionately fond, Carl Zeller’s popular piece in three acts, Der Vogelhändler [The Birdseller].
Both recorded…
In May 1894, Princess Alix of Hesse undertook a cure in the fashionable Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate for sciatica. She had become engaged to Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia at Coburg the previous month. Whilst she stayed at Harrogate, she regularly corresponded with her…
Princess Alix of Hesse, later Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, visited the Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate in 1894 to take a cure for sciatica, during which time she became godmother to the Allen twins, born in the house where she was staying, to her landlady, Mrs Allen. These…
In the German spa town of Bad Nauheim in Hesse, hangs a present – by tradition – from Imperial Russia. It is to be found within the solemnly beautiful church, the Reinhardskirche, in the old town quarter, built between 1732/33.
Like many baroque churches whose outer exterior is plain and its interior lavish with decorative detail, the simplicity of its sacred architecture from the…
