In September 1869, a popular Russian weekly magazine Vsemirnaia Illustratsiia [World Illustrated] published an article “The Interior of the Anichkov Palace: the Study of the Tsesarevna and the Bedroom of Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich.” Six xylograph images that accompanied the publication captured the rooms from various angles inviting the readers to marvel at the furnishings, objet d'arts and memorabilia in whose presence the spouse and infant son of the heir to the Russian throne spent most of their time. Whereas for the publisher German Goppe showing the Romanovs’ dwellings to his audience was a way to promote the recently launched illustrated magazine, the court’s approval to expose the Romanovs' furnishings to public scrutiny seemed at odds with the court's own sensibilities. This paper argues that while challenging the boundaries of the royal family's private sphere, the publication functioned as a carefully curated introduction to the new members of the imperial family's public personas. Drawing the readers' attention to the works of art, bibelots, books and other personal belongings, the anonymous author used these objects to emphasize the ties that linked Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna and her infant son with the Russian imperial subjects at large, the growing middle-class urban population in particular, as well as other ruling dynasties of Europe. Analyzing this publication and its echoes in Russian and European press elucidates the performative power of royal material objects as they started to enter the public sphere via the illustrated periodicals in the latter half of the 19th century — acting as vehicles of Russification, dynastic memory and arguments in transnational/imperial competition.
