The last Tsar
In the centenary year of the terrible execution of the Russian Imperial family, the loan of a portrait of Tsar nicholas II to the Scottish national Gallery in Edinburgh, from the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Trust, is particularly poignant. After the abdication in 1917, the Romanovs, including five children, were imprisoned and executed by the Bolsheviks on the night of July 16–17, 1918.
The monarch, who, together with his family, was canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, is depicted in the full dress uniform befitting a Colonel-in-chief of Scotland’s 2nd Dragoons (The Royal Scots Greys). The position was granted to him in 1894 by Queen Victoria, his grandmother-in-law, who also made him a Knight of the Garter, a Field-marshal and Honorary Admiral of the Fleet.
The portrait is the only major oil by Valentin Serov, great Society portraitist of the pre-revolutionary era, in any British public collection.
‘We are tremendously proud of our regiment’s history and our association with our Royal Family right back to 1678,’ says Brig David Allfrey, Colonel of the Regiment of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. ‘Our connections with Russia are long-honoured... We carry an icon of St nicholas with Regimental Headquarters on operations and on training, and the Serov portrait has traditionally hung at the end of the Officers Mess Dining Room. It is a precious and important object for us all.’