The sitter was the fifth son of Tsar Alexander II of Russia (1818-1881) and Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna (1824-1880). He married Princess Elisabeth of Hesse (1864-1918), a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, at the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in June 1884. Between 1891 and 1905 he held the position of Governor General of Moscow. He was assassinated by a member the Socialist-Revolutionary Party who threw a bomb at the Duke’s carriage while he was driving near the Kremlin in 1905.
Adolf Helzel owned a porcelain painting company in Berlin.