Grand Duchess Elizaveta - discussion and pictures PART III

[Svetabel]

I wonder if Ella ever painted Alexandra. I would think there would be a good chance of it when they were younger, but I've never seen such a picture.

Ella did paint her sister. The portrait has been displayed at the recent opening of the newly restored rooms of the Alexander Palace.

Now that is something I'd like to see.....thank you for letting me know.

The portrait is a water-colour of 1897 year, the image had been considered lost since 1941 year but was found in Germany this year - a German woman returned the portrait back.

http://archi.ru/events/news/news_current_press.html?nid=25747&fl=1&sl=1

Scroll down and at left  3 photo from the top.

[Eric_Lowe]

Looks very much like Alicky. Ella was a good painter. 

[katmaxoz]

Thank you Svetabel for that link.  It'd be good if they sold postcards of the painting, but invaribly the pictures you want a postcard of in a museum or stately home are the ones they aren't selling...

[Clelia]

The watercolor of Alexandra by Ella. Looking at this we must recognize that Elisabeth was an accomplished artist.

[ashanti01]

Very accomplished! Thank you so much for posting the watercolor Veronica.

It is really wonderful that the portrait was returned and is now in the hands of the museum. Such a lovely portrait...I must admit it turned out much better than I had anticipated when I first heard of it's existence. Watercolor is such a difficult medium yet the painting looks...flawless.

[Olga Maria]

That portrait above is my no. 1 most favorite of Alix ever! It's remarkably brilliant because it captured Alix's real look (amazed)
Thank you so much Veronica for posting that, and I also thank very much Ashanti and Kathy or posting the beautiful portraits of Kitty and Zenaida!

The portrait is a water-colour of 1897 year, the image had been considered lost since 1941 year but was found in Germany this year - a German woman returned the portrait back.
http://archi.ru/events/news/news_current_press.html?nid=25747&fl=1&sl=1

Thank you so much, too, for this link, Svetabel. Had Ella given this portrait to Alix?

[gem_10]

Amazing portrait! I didn't realized that Ella was such an accomplished painter, although I know that she painted a lot. It's a wonderful portrait of Alix. Ella perfectly captured her sister's likeness. I wonder if Ella ever done a self-portrait. That would be interesting. 

[grandduchessella]

I thought she did do a self-portrait?

[Eric_Lowe]

The one missing is Irene.

[Olga Maria]

The one missing is Irene.

Are you meaning to say Ella hasn’t painted Irene yet or Irene is the only one among VEIA whose paintings weren’t known?

[Eric_Lowe]

I don't think Ella had painted Irene...

[katmaxoz]

I've been reading "memories in the marble palace" by Grand Duke Gabriel Constantinovich and was started to come across the following description of a painting of Ella that was on the wall of Serge's private study in Moscow in 1902.

"Near the table on the wall hung a portrait of Elizabeth Fedorovna. She was painted in profile wearing a pink Russian style court dress and on her head a hair dress decorated with emeralds. She held a fan in her hands. The portrait had a surprising resemblance of the original and was very elegant"

I've never seen a painted period portrait of Elizabeth dressed formally like this, though I'd always hoped one was painted. I wonder if the portrait was painted from this photo? If so, then the dress she is wearing here is pink, like these ones...which I think is interesting.










and not gold like this modern artist has painted - they also got the jewels wrong. These are Ella's famous emerald set.

[Eric_Lowe]

True...but artists are seldom interested in historical accuracy. I don't know if that was "the" pink dress.

[katmaxoz]

True...but artists are seldom interested in historical accuracy. I don't know if that was "the" pink dress.

I never said it was her dress. It is an example of the style and colour.  The high ranking imperial grand duchesses had cloth of silver court dresses for very formal occassions and various colour dress for when they needed "russian dress" but didn't want the weight of the cloth of silver.

However, I would expect that for Elizabeth's portrait for Serge the artist would be accruate as I have the impression he was a man with an eye for accruacy and detail....and wouldn't it bug you if your portrait had been painted in a fantasy dress, that was supposed to be "the real thing" and you had to look at it every day?  It's just unusual to come across tibits of information like this that can be useful in historical reconstruction.

[Eric_Lowe]

I know. However I do know that pink does not go well with green stones like emeralds. Ella was given such status of one with style and colour that she would allow a colour clash like that. Pink would look good with her pearls & diamonds...