Lot Essay
Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, later Tsar Alexander I of Russia, was the son of Tsar Paul I and Maria Feodorovna. He was raised by his grandmother, Catherine the Great, and educated by his Swiss tutor, Frédéric-César de La Harpe. He married, in 1793, at the age of fifteen, the fourteen-year-old Princess Louise Maria Auguste of Baden, who became Elizabeth Alexeivna. He succeeded to the throne after the assassination of his father in 1801 and ruled Russia during the Napoleonic Wars. On his death in 1825 his younger brother, Nicholas I became Emperor of Russia.