Imperial Framed Miniature of Tsar Nicholas II (1896): Art, History and Details

Imperial Framed Miniature of Tsar Nicholas II (1896) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johannes Zehngraf (Russian, 1857–1908); Mikhail Evlampievich Perkhin (Russian, 1860–1903); House of Fabergé, (Russian, 1842–1918).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The giving of miniatures had long been a common practice among wealthy and aristocratic families by the time Faberge began combining portraits with his richly decorated frames. The Russian imperial family delighted in having these personal mementos and commissioned many different miniatures to place around their private apartments, providing a warm family atmosphere in an otherwise highly formal existence.

Object facts

• Title: Imperial Framed Miniature of Tsar Nicholas II
• Date: 1896
• Creator attribution: Johannes Zehngraf (Russian, 1857–1908); Mikhail Evlampievich Perkhin (Russian, 1860–1903); House of Fabergé, (Russian, 1842–1918)
• Culture: Russia, St. Petersburg
• Type: Portrait Miniature
• Technique: jade, gold, rubies, gouache, ivory, glass
• Dimensions: Overall: 15.3 x 5 x 5 cm (6 x 1 15/16 x 1 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Decorative Arts
• Department: Decorative Art and Design
• Accession number: 1966.458.1

A detail from the museum

This painted miniature is one of two miniatures that were personal gifts from the tsar and tsarina to one another in 1896, a year after the birth of their firstborn child, Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna. The tsar gave this miniature of himself to his wife, and she gave the one of the baby to him.

Collection credit

The India Early Minshall Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hawley, Henry H. Fabergé and His Contemporaries: The India Early Minshall Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1967.
• Habsburg, Géza von, and David Park Curry. Fabergé in America. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996.
• Harrison, Stephen, Emmanuel Ducamp, and Jeannine J. Falino. Artistic Luxury: Fabergé Tiffany Lalique. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.