VICTORIA MELITA (1876-1936, Grand Duchess, wife of Grand Duke Kirill of Russia)

Portrait photo by Nickolas Muray of New York, signed with the place and date on the mount, showing her seated, three quarter length, three quarter face, in a dark elbow length dress with fringed sleeves, long pearl necklace and earrings, 9½" x 7½" on mount 16" x 11¾" loose in photographer's outer folder, New York, in fine condition, outer folder a little worn

With a note on the back saying that the photo shows the Grand Duchess, (known as Victoria Feodorovna after her marriage to Kirill), after crossing the Atlantic "on the same Steam Ship as Dorothy Paget and Helene Orloff (Granny)". In 1924 Kirill proclaimed himself Emperor and Victoria went to America to gain support for his restoration. Dorothy Paget, 1905-1960, the racehorse owner, had been at a Russian school in Paris and gave great support to the emigré community up to 1940.
Victoria, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was called after the old name for Malta, where she was born while Prince Alfred was serving in the Navy. Her first marriage in 1894 to her cousin Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse, ended in divorce in 1901; her second, to Kirill Vladimirovich in 1905, to their banishment from Russia by Nicholas II, though a reconciliation took place during WWI. The deaths in the Imperial family made Kirill the claimant to the throne. From the collection of the Grand Duke Kyrill.

Item Date:  1924

Stock No:  54090      £850

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