Family portraits

I do wish we could discover why the whole family weren't included in the portrait.  I know that Alice is quoted as saying that Victoria was excluded for being 'too tall', but that still seems strange to me....Why are the others missing?

I was looking through the letters of Princess Alice and she mentions that it was composition:

In the intro to the chapter dealing with 1878 it says: 'The celebrated portrait-painter Heinrich von Angeli had come to Darmstadt in the spring to paint a family picture of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess and their children by command of the Queen of England. Princess Alice greatly enjoyed his acquaintance, and was charmed as well by his musical talent as by his wonderful genius in painting. Angeli's picture of Princess Alice was the last ever painted of her.'

April 9 1878
'...Angeli has arrived, and will begin at once. We thought Ernie and Ella--Victoria is too big, though she is the eldest and ought to be in the picture; she would be too preponderant. Angeli is quite lost in admiration of Aliky [how Alice spelled it] and May, who are, I must say to myself, such a lovely little pair as one does not often see. He will begin our heads to-morrow...'

April 9 1878
'...Angeli has arrived, and will begin at once. We thought Ernie and Ella--Victoria is too big, though she is the eldest and ought to be in the picture; she would be too preponderant. Angeli is quite lost in admiration of Aliky [how Alice spelled it] and May, who are, I must say to myself, such a lovely little pair as one does not often see. He will begin our heads to-morrow...'

It is weird how she mentions May and Alicky ought to be together and will together in the portrait but May ended up not being painted.  Alice does not mention Irene at all!?!  Poor Irene...

I have been trying to obtain a colour copy of the portrait of Alice in evening dress, and Elisa very kindly gave me the name of one of the curators of the Royal Collection here in England.  To cut a long story short, she has informed me that this portrait was thought to be by von Angeli but has been re-attributed to the painter Joseph Hartmann. The English version is at Osborne House.

So,there is still a chance to see her portrait in colour!I almost lost hope!

But it is!   The picture is cropped from Prince Heinrich cigarettes   Are there any colour portraits of her?

the original photograph...

but I also never saw a painting of her...

Has anyone ever seen(don't mean have,but only seen) any portrait of her?

There was another wonderful painting made from this, which has the four Hessian sisters in a group together, without the rest of the family. [/quote]

Do you have a photo of this painting? I want to see it...

OK--now I think this must be the book the prints came from. When we discarded books at the library we weren't allowed to sell them (it was a University and has rules) but rather had to rip them up and throw them out   .

Many of us took some of the illustrations out of the trash  :-/ and since this is the 3rd one that I've just found that have been posted, I'm beginning to think they must've been from the Beaven book. I should feel bad about taking the illustrations but I don't. It made us all ill to destroy books like that.

Two pictures of Familytravels

Nikolaj, Alexandra, Ducky and Ernie

Thank you for the nice pictures. Have a look to the picture in Wolfsgarten. Ernst Ludwig has a wonderful bicycle produced by Opel I think

Thanks for the nice picture of Ducky & Alix togather. It is rare to see in a photo as the rumour was spread that they did not get along, especially after her divorce and re-marriage.

Some more Family pictures, i posted them on Alexandra as a child forum too

Somenone posted some portraits of Ella few weeks ago, from miniatures or Faberge works, I can't find them...Could you help me? Thanks!