This is one of the photographs enclosed with a letter sent by Empress Alexandra to Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and maternal aunt to the Empress. Ten of the photographs are professional single and group portraits of the Empress’s daughters, known collectively to the family in order of birth as OTMA, taken by the fashionable firm Boissonnas & Eggler, and one is a snapshot of her son, Tsesarevich Alexei, possibly taken by the Empress herself. In the letter, dated 17/30 May 1914, Alexandra writes: ‘You kindly asked after the children & I enclose their last photos to give you an idea what they look like. Thank God Alexei has been keeping in much better health & has grown very much. He will be 10 this summer. I think you would love him […] He has such a tender heart - & bears pains so patiently - is very merry & clever’. Presented to Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, 1914

RA VIC/ADDA17/1187