On the far side of the lens - Victor Kraft photographed by Beaton (and others)

By Cecil Beaton, circa 1935.

A "ballet film improvisation" with Princess Natalie Paley, directed by Pavel Tchelitchew and photographed by Beaton, 1935.

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By Carl Van Vechten, 1935.

Victor Kraft (né Victor Hugo Etler Kraftsov; 8 August 1915, Oneonta, New York – 2 July 1976, Maine), professional photographer and life-long friend/lover of composer Aaron Copland. A violin prodigy, he gave concerts as a child. He later attended Juilliard and studied composition with Roger Sessions. When he was sixteen, he met Copeland who encouraged him to give up music and focus on photography. The two would maintain a close relationship until Kraft's death; Copeland called Kraft his, "pupil, companion, secretary and friend." He went on to contribute photographs to many of the most prominent publications of the day, he worked as a photojournalist during the Spanish Civil War, and became known for his portraits of leading figures in the world of music. All this time, though, he was also paid by Copland as his secretary and chauffeur, and the two lived together and traveled extensively. All through their relationship Copeland had a series of affairs or brief relationships with other handsome young men, much to Kraft's distress. And after a retaliatory affair with Leonard Bernstein, he married writer Pearl Kazin in 1951; only a few months later he returned to Copeland. Nine years after that, though, he married again and settled in Croton-on-Hudson, nearby to Copeland. The couple had a son - Copeland was the godfather - but the child was mentally handicapped. In 1968 Kraft, long upset about his son's condition and the state of his relationship with Copeland, kidnapped the then seven-year-old Jeremy and left the country for several months. Copeland remained in contact though, even meeting with Kraft in England and Israel. And only a few years later when Kraft died of a heart attack in Maine at the age of sixty, Copeland looked out for Jeremy, paid his tuition at a private school, and later helped him get training to become an auto mechanic.

By George Platt Lynes, 1936.

When a Romanov puts on a swimsuit - le prince Théodore Alexandrovitch de Russie à la plage

All these photographs are believed to have been taken in the south of France, circa first half of the 1920s.

Prince Feodor Alexandrovich (23 December 1898, St. Petersburg - 30 November 1968, Ascain), the second son of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna (elder sister of the last Tsar) and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, he reached manhood just as Russia devolved into revolution, and his family was forced into exile. He was tall - more than six foot four inches - athletic and handsome; he had something of Gary Cooper about him, and something of Cooper's earnest, boyish charm. He was apparently a simple soul, liked to work with his hands. He was also probably not possessed of the most brilliant intellect. And he certainly was rather inept at making his way in the world; throughout his life he was rarely able to find and maintain steady employment or sufficient income. His only sister, Irina, was the wife of Prince Felix Yusupov, and Feodor spent much of the early Twenties living with the couple in Paris, traveling in Italy, Corsica, England. In 1923, he married his first cousin once removed, Princess Irina Pavlovna Paley, the morganatic daughter of the murdered Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich. The couple had a son the following year. But the marriage proved a failure; Irina had an affair with a French count, whose daughter she bore in 1934, and she and Feodor were divorced two years later. In the aftermath of the affair, Feodor went to America, was unhappy there and, after more professional disappointments, he returned to England where, heading into his forties, he settled with his mother. During World War II, still in England, he developed tuberculosis; by the end of the War, he was gravely ill. With the support of his sister and brother-in-law, he returned to France, arriving in Paris on a stretcher; the doctor's prognosis was that death might be imminent. Instead, he was sent to a little house in the Basque region where, supported by his family, he spent the next twenty years, surviving to the age of seventy.

With his wife, née Princess Irina Paley, and her sister, Princess Natalia Paley, later the wife of couturier Lucien Lelong.

With his brother (on the left) Prince Nikita Alexandrovich.

With his brother Nikita (center) and Nikita's wife, née Countess Maria Illarionovna Vorontsova-Dashkova.