Portrait of Emperor Nicholas II with the Remarque Portrait of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich Mikhail Rundaltsov 1913 From an original by Valentin Serov Etching, watercolour, gouache 28.2 x 21.5 x 37.5 cm Nicholas II's contemporaries described him as an exceptionally charming man with a complex nature. Serov's portrait was considered the best of many representations of the tsar. Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna would have kept the portrait in her study.