The Life of Empress Alexandra: Portrait

Source:

The Life of a Painter, Sir John Lavery, 1940

https://archive.org/details/lifeofapainter000666mbp/page/n75/mode/2up?q=Alix

The memory:

Of all the royalties that I have painted the one that stands out is the Princess Alix of Hesse, late Empress of Russia, because of her great beauty. I had been given a large reception room in the Schloss for a studio. The first morning, I well remember, I woke with a blinding headache, a prevalent trouble of mine, usually meaning a day in bed. It was the morning that the Princess was to sit, and I forced myself to go to the studio where a huge coal fire at either end was banked up. There were large hairy rugs in front. It was most fortunate that I arrived early, I was no sooner there than one fireplace was in flames and then the other. I was alone, there was no means of calling servants, so I rushed about, finally getting help — the whole staff with all sorts of fire extinguishers. It was astonishing how quickly everything was put in order; half an hour afterwards, when the Princess came in, no one would have known that flames and volumes of smoke had filled the room so recently. Even the air had been reconditioned. The Grand Duke was so pleased with the little study I painted that he asked me to come back to Darmstadt to paint a life-sized portrait of his daughter before she became Czarina. I have often regretted that I did not do it. She hypnotized me by the strange sadness of her eyes, like one on the verge of insanity yet sane enough to realize it. I shall always remember the look almost of terror that came and went as I was painting her.