With it's fine engine-turning and striking two-toned guilloché enamel, its expertly executed goldwork and perfect proportions, it comes as no surprise that the present frame was made for royalty. As evidenced by in the Pavlovsk Palace Inventory, this beautifully crafted frame was originally purchased by the Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, the third son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna.

It is very possible that the Grand Duke was inspired to purchase this frame due to an admiration of a highly similar frame owned by his uncle and aunt, Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, which they had purchased a mere couple of weeks earlier: the Emperor and Empress's frame bears the scratched number 55135, and was purchased on 19 December 1896, whilst the Grand Duke's frame, which bears the number 55134, was purchased on 7 January 1897:

The frame, containing a photograph of the young Grand Duchess Tatiana, is now held in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, having been bequeathed by Lillian Thomas Pratt (see here). According to the inventory kept by the commandant of the Soviet soldiers who had held the imperial family hostage in Ekaterinburg, this frame was amongst their personal possessions at their time of death.

The present frame was purchased only two years before the Grand Duke's tragically premature death in 1899. It had appeared in the public eye in 1977, included in the Victoria & Albert Museum's Jubilee Exhibition of Fabergé, held in 1977, though the provenance was not recorded in the exhibition catalogue.