Photo of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna Romanoff, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanoff, at a costume ball in 1883.

Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, studio of Karl Bergamasco. 1883.

Photo: 19 x 9.2 cm. Passe-partout: 21.1 x 10.1 cm.
Paper, photograph, hand coloring.
The photo is pasted on a branded passe-partout of the Bergamasco photo studio.
Owner's inscriptions in pencil on the reverse side. Damage in the upper left corner; minor staining.

The famous 1903 ball in the Winter Palace was a luxurious ball during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. It was held in the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg. All the visitors were in bejeweled 17th-century style costumes based on the designs of the artist Sergey Solomko made in collaboration with historical experts.

The entire Imperial family posed in rich 17th-century costumes, many wearing priceless original items brought specially from the Kremlin, for what was to be their final photograph together. "Album of the Costume Ball in the Winter Palace" was published later based on the photographs.

Bergamasco Karl Ivanovich (Charles)  (1830-1896) - owner of a photo workshop in St. Petersburg. In 1863 he received permission to be called "the photographer of the Imperial Theatres" on the condition that "he undertook to compile for the Directorate free of charge an archive and reference album of portraits of artists in all their costumes from new ballets and operas produced on the local stage". Prominent artists such as M.A. Zichi, S.K. Zaryanko and I. Charlemagne worked in his studio. In 1865, he became a photographer for Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Romanov (senior).

He received many prizes at exhibitions in Berlin (1865, 1895), Paris (1867), Hamburg (1868), St. Petersburg (1870), Vienna (1873), London (1874), Philadelphia (1876) and others. In the 1890s, he finished his activities.