Alexandra's Personal World

[Olga Maria]

This is a rose I have seen in Calgary, and plan to have it in my own garden next year.

http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/pl.php?n=219

Louise

A nice rose..I wish I could grow it but I have no money to buy such..
Thanks for posting that photo, Louise

[Alexandre64]

In this picture we can better see the Boucheron tiara. The ring may be his fiançiaille ring?  bracelets donated by his uncle?

[Mari]

Is there a photo of the Rasputin Ruby?  size, description..

[Olga Maria]

Ruby, was offered by Rasputin, the Ruby would be cursed, all owners of this stone have been murdered:
1/Raspoutine, murdered by Prince Yusupov
2 / The Empress, murdered with his family
3 / Then the Ruby is given to Trotsky, who was assassinated in Mexico
4 / Ruby remains in the USSR and the Soviet Union collapse

Really? Oh, wonderful fact! Merci, Alexandre64!

[nena]

FANTASTIC-- Alexandre64! MAy I add some of her with tiara, 1906,1911 sets:

[*Tina*]

Ruby, was offered by Rasputin, the Ruby would be cursed, all owners of this stone have been murdered:
1/Raspoutine, murdered by Prince Yusupov
2 / The Empress, murdered with his family
3 / Then the Ruby is given to Trotsky, who was assassinated in Mexico
4 / Ruby remains in the USSR and the Soviet Union collapse

Really? Oh, wonderful fact! Merci, Alexandre64!

Wow! I didn't know that. Thanks, Alexandre64!

[Olga Maria]

What are the jewels put on that tiara?

[Alexandre64]

the tiara was made of diamond and pearls

[David_Newell]

I would love to start a discussion on AF and her style, we have tackled many a serious subject on AF. Lets look at her tastes and her love of for one thing the natural world. She loved flowers, her perfumes tell us this as  well as her taste in colour and furnishing fabrics. Now is this her or the influence of art nouveau,. Darmstadt was a huge influence on art nouveau and I think I am right in saying Princess Alice was at the beginning of this movement. Grand Duke Ernst loved it and he was as we all know very close to AF. So indulge me here I would love to hear your opinions, your like or dislike of say the feel of the Mauve Boudoir. I think her best rooms were at Livadia, a more mature look and feel to the spaces and things she chose. For example I am at my desk it is covered in photograph frames of my dogs, family and a large drawing of AF at the time of her marriage. Behind the desk is a window sill covered in more of the same. How is your desk? What does this say about me and can we use AF's decorating taste to reveal even more about her??

[Thomas_Hesse]

I think one has to divide it up - you mention the rooms at Livadia. Those were furnished in 1911 when she was a mature woman looking back on almost two decades of imperial life. The Mauve Boudoir as well as the Pallisander Room and Imp. Bedroom were created in 1896 and - as Bob Atchinson pointed out in his superbe reports - did not change until Alexandra had to leave her home in 1917. They were very much in the historism/late victorian style - sort of overcrowded and with many frills and furbelows - she had known from England as well as Darmstadt and which she imitated in a way.
There are photographs of her rooms at the New Palace in Darmstadt - many pieces, photographs all over the place. If one looks at other images of rooms fo the time I come to the conclusion that Alexandra had quite an average taste in addition to furniture. She liked cozy corners, palmtrees, flowerstands and such which divided the rooms up into several parts. An exception is - of course - the official reception rooms with its Louis XVI objects.
We see rococo style, founding period and the style of her own days (1890ies). It is a mix but actually I like it - would be intersting to see those rooms in color for I cannot imagine a mauve fabric and peppermint green carpet )

The Maple room is of course an entirely different world - Jugendstil but even here we've got several historism pieces such as the bust of her brother as a child.
As regards Livadia one has to keep in mind that this was a summers retreat visited for quite a short time. I think her personal taste is much reflected in Zarskje Selo!

[aleksandra]

Mauve Boudoir is my favorite room that and her bedroom. It's just the way when you look at the photo's  and I would give anything to have that lilac room.

[David_Newell]

Thomas, please excuse my tardiness at replying to your very interesting posting. Yes I agree with you about the time gap between Livadia and the interiors at the AP. Though I think we can use the gap between moving in to the AP in 1895 and the new schemes by AF and with help from her brother G.D. Ernie in 1903 as proof of an emerging personal style!

I see the rooms at Livadia as the maturing of her taste and as women. I love her rooms at Livadia. I also have a real fondness for the clutter and whiteness of the Mauve Boudoir, in the whiteness I mean, the Hepplewhite style furniture is used as a foil to the over powering mauveness of the scheme. I think AF had a real eye, also the early rooms sometimes seem to lack confidence, coming from a rural German court, suddenly the purse was always open. \if you see what I mean.

Hope this is not too confusing, would love to know what you think.

I too would have loved to see the wallpaper from the Mauve Boudoir, they say it shimmered in the right light.

David Newell, London

[Sarushka]

A Faberge lamp from the rooms of Alexandra at the AP:



I haven't been able to spot it yet in any of my vintage photos of the AP, but the green and amethyst color scheme suggests to me that this piece most likely belonged in the Mauve Room.

[David_Newell]

Oh that is lovely, I think you may be right. Seems to fit doesn't it.

[Sarushka]

Faberge pieces from the Palisander room at the AP:



All are visible in this photo: