Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Tsar and Tsarina

The exhibition opens with a series of delightful, mid-19th century watercolour views of St Petersburg and its environs, while, opposite, a row of hugely impressive and sombre portraits of the Romanov rulers immediately creates a sense of Russian history. Looking down at us with varying degrees of hauteur are Peter the Great; the redoubtable Empress Catherine II; Alexander I, who pre-empted Napoleon's invasion of Moscow by burning the city to the ground; Nicholas I, patron of the arts; Alexander II, before whose eventual assassination serfdom officially came to an end in 1861; and, finally, the father of Nicholas II, Alexander III, who died suddenly in October 1894 aged only 49, precipitating his son's unexpectedly early and reluctant accession to rule the vast Russian empire.

The Danish artist, Laurits Regner Tuxen's painting of the wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna (originally Princess Alice of Hess, granddaughter of Queen Victoria) captures something of the sadness felt by the new Tsar and his bride who were married in incomparable splendour in the Winter Palace, only weeks after Alexander III's death. The artist's viewpoint, to the left of the couple, was the same as the one allocated to the great Russian master, Ilya Repin, whose painting of the scene was never finished. Tuxen's commemoration of the Coronation is also displayed, relaying the even greater magnificence in which Nicholas was crowned in May 1896 in the Kremlin's Cathedral of the Assumption.

Next, the spirit of Holy Russia is evoked with a portrait of St Antony, Metropolitan of St Petersburg, magnificent priestly chasubles, a hanging icon lamp worked in silver, enamel and gold, and large icons, including one dedicated to the 'Holy Mother of Kazan' that is decorated with tiny Easter eggs from the hand of Fabergé. The reserved and undemonstrative Alexandra was an eager convert to the Russian Orthodox Church; a photograph of the couple's bedroom shows it hung with numerous icons.

Russia's links with other countries are also explored in this exhibition. In 1891, Nicholas went to Japan, whose increasing industrial and military power would soon threaten her security in the east. To the chagrin of the Japanese emperor, he narrowly escaped assassination: his bloodstained shirt is on display. In late 1896, the Tsar and Tsarina paid a state visit to Paris, designed to cement the Franco-Russian alliance. They had just returned from Balmoral, in Scotland, where crowds of onlookers had cheered them as they neared their destination. In Orlando Norie's watercolour, their carriage arrives at the castle doorway escorted by Scots Greys and with Highlanders lighting their way with flaming torches. Queen Victoria was photographed looking fondly at her new Russian great-granddaughter, Alexandra's first child, Olga Nikolaevna.

The many and varied costumes are one of the strengths of the exhibition. The substantial cloth and bold colours of Nicholas's various regimental uniforms (and of the court blackamoors' apparel) contrast with the subtle shades and delicate fabrics of Alexandra's beautiful dresses. The Tsarina was fond of beige and soft pink; both her court dresses and less formal wear, supplied by St Petersburg designers, were very often created in rose or sugar pink or in soft light browns. An entire section is devoted to the Russian-style fancy dress costumes worn at the last Masquerade Ball held in the Winter Palace in 1903. Among these costly fabrications is the Grand Duchess Maria Georgevna's costume, based on a 17th-century peasant woman's dress and fashioned from satin, velvet, crepe, gold braid, artificial pearls and sequins. There is also an exceptionally well preserved and finely worked early 19th-century woman's festive folk dress and kokoshnik from central Russia, made of silk cloth, brocade, cotton cloth, velvet, kersey, braid, glass and metal thread. This room, perhaps more than any other, serves to indicate the boundless extravagance of courtly life, with its prevailing nostalgia for Old Russia.

In 1904, having borne four daughters, Alexandra gave birth to a boy, Alexei Nikolaevich. The couple were euphoric; Nicholas so proud of his son that when he was only a few days old, he telegraphed the commander of the Astrakhan Regiment of Cossacks to announce that the heir to the throne was appointed hetman of all the Cossack regiments. Tragically, joy quickly gave way to despair as Alexei's haemophilia was diagnosed and, within a few years, Alexandra's dependency upon the cunning and dissimulating Rasputin was to cause much antagonism. Many personal items, some never before displayed, poignantly illustrate family life at Tsarskoe Selo: there are children's dolls, the tsarevich's toy soldiers and war games (the young Alexei took a great interest in military topics), and Nicholas's own icon-case with nine small icons and his walking stick.

Three hundred years of the Romanov dynasty, long distant from and uncaring of the people, were celebrated with due official pomp in 1913. Thereafter, it was as if the fates had identified the gentle and affectionate Nicholas as their fall guy. He had little choice but to declare war in support of Serbia in 1914 and to assume supreme command of the Russian forces against Germany, proving an ineffectual leader. Disastrous losses among the Russian soldiery compounded popular unrest: grainy photographs tell of imperial emblems being burnt in the streets in early 1917 and record General Kornilov, who arrested Alexandra, on horseback. Nicholas abdicated on 2 March 1917 and, after a desultory period under house arrest, he and his family were executed by order of Lenin in July 1918.

Averil King