International royalsOther

Investigative Committee confirms remains found near Yekaterinburg belong to the Imperial Family

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17th July 2018
Russian Investigate Committee official Svetlana Petrenko confirmed that the remains found in Yekaterinburg in 1991 and 2007 are those of the Imperial Family, Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, their four daughters and their son. “Comprehensive commission molecular and genetic tests have now confirmed that the remains belong to former Emperor Nicholas II, his family members and…
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A Portrait of Princess Alix of Hesse

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14th June 2018
A portrait of the toddler Princess Alix of Hesse by the Austrian painter George Koberwein caught my attention back in 2004. Examining how it came to be painted was a source of great interest to me, not least because the picture that he produced of the baby princess, not quite two years old, is such a charming study. Portraits from such an early period of Princess Alix’s life are rare; she was…
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What did the Tsarina read?

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9th May 2018
A study of the books owned by someone can open a window into their interests, and a royal personage no less so. In so doing, the reading material of the last Empress of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna (1872-1918) charts important events in her life and tells us a lot about what…
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Cats and royalty

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22nd January 2018
Alongside the well-established royal love of dogs, cats are far less recorded as preferred pets, unlike their canine counterparts. They have, however, been no less loved by those that did own them. So revered were cats (“mau”) as sacred animals in Ancient Egypt that they were often mummified. Feline depictions of Egyptian deities date back as far as 3100 BC; the goddess Bastet often took this…
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