Ilya Repin. Portrait of Emperor Nicholas II

In 1895–1896 Ilya Yefimovich Repin (1844–1930) painted from life several full-length ceremonial portraits of Emperor Nicholas II (1868–1918). Four such portraits are known: two in the Russian Museum (1895 and 1896), one in the Hermitage (1895), and this one, of 1896, in the Historical Museum.

The emperor stands on the porch of a wooden building decorated in the Russian style, possibly a regimental dacha at Tsarskoye Selo. He wears an officer’s uniform with the insignia of an aide-de-camp (flügel-adjutant) and the badge of the Order of St Vladimir, 4th class, in his buttonhole. The artist’s signature and the date are at the lower right.

The portrait is painted in oil on canvas and measures 308 × 136 cm. It came to the Historical Museum in 1930 from the Military History Museum.