Vanity Fair Tennis Print 'Michael Michailovitch'.

Vanity Fair Tennis Print 'Michael Michailovitch'.

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Vanity Fair Lawn Tennis, 'Michael Michailovitch' after Wag.
A chromolithograph tennis print published 4th Jan, 1894, by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son Ltd. Lith., for Vanity Fair. The picture is titled 'Michael Michailovitch' and is an original print in very good condition of The Grand Duke Michael Michailovitch of Russia by Wag (A.G. Witherby, Witherby succeeded Thomas Gibson Bowles as editor of Vanity Fair). Michael is shown in his whites at the net ready to return the ball.

Vanity Fair was published in London from 1869 to 1914, and each magazine would contain a loose print of a caricature painted by various artists and would come with an amusing biography. 'Spy' worked for Vanity Fair for 40 years until it ceased publication in 1914 and is possibly the most well known of the VF artists.

Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia (1861 – 1929) was a grandson of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. As tradition demanded he followed a military career and served in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877 and became a Colonel and was adjutant at the Imperial court. In 1891 he married Countess Sophie von Merenberg. She was a woman of lesser status, and the marriage went ahead without permission, so Emperor Alexander III of Russia stripped him of his military titles and banished the couple from Russia. He settled permanently in England in 1900 in Staffordshire and later on the outskirts of London.

Dimensions:

Height 32.5 cm / 13"
Width 19.5 cm / 7 34"
Framed height 51 cm / 20 14"
Framed width 35 cm / 14"
Year

1894

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