Portrait of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich is a portrait by the Russian artist Victor Stember.
When the family was preparing to visit Russia in 2006, we wrote to the State Museum of History and asked if they were in possession of any of Stembers paintings. They replied that they had three and we arranged to view them when we were in Moscow. This one was not currently at the museum because, according to the curators, the Mayor of Moscow had requested it to be loaned to him for a period of three years for him to display it in his dining room.
The curators showed us the picture and an article about the painting in a book, from which we took the photograph shown below under Archival Records.
The family long knew this painting as "Count Romanov." It is Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (1857-1905), son of Emperor Alexander II, Governor-General of Moscow, and husband of Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna (#197). The State Historical Museum holds a Stember portrait of him dated about 1896 to 1900 (catalog OBJECT/3042536), and the family's photograph matches the published images of that portrait. Natasha's memoir also lists the Grand Duke among her father's Moscow sitters. He was assassinated by a revolutionary's bomb in the Kremlin in February 1905.
Archival Records of This Work
Do you have information about this portrait, such as its location, provenance, or a better photograph? Please contact the family.