Many of these rare pictures of the imperial Romanov family were taken by head of the family and Russia's last tsar himself, Nicholas II. An insatiable photographer, the tsar took great care of his pictures, filing them carefully in numerous albums. He passed down his love for photography to Maria, his third daughter, who was responsible for coloring most of the pictures.

Within a year of the last pictures, the Russian Revolution took place. The tsar was forced to abdicate and the family was exiled. In Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918, they were shot on Lenin's orders.