Imperial family photos fetch SFr1.6 million
Around 300 original and unpublished photos of the family of Russia’s last tsar have fetched SFr1.6 million ($1.7 million) at auction in Geneva.
They belonged to the family’s Swiss tutor Ferdinand Thormeyer and include images of Emperor Alexander III, Empress Maria Feodorovna, Tsar Nicholas II and his siblings. Some of them are signed.
Most of the collection, which was valued at SFr30,000, was bought on Monday evening by a Swiss collector, the Hôtel des Ventes auction house said.
The photographs were found in the attic of one of Thormeyer’s descendents.
This latest auction follows on from the sale of letters, telegrams and other objects from Thormeyer’s collection last December, which went for four times their estimate.
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