Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark

Biography

Prince Nicholas often signed his paintings “Nicolas Leprince”, that is, “Nicholas Prince”. The pseudonym, built on his title, did not hide who the author was.

He was born in Athens on 22 January 1872, the fourth child and third son of King George I of Greece and Queen Olga, a Russian grand duchess (Olga Constantinovna). Within the family he was called “Greek Nicky”, so as not to confuse him with his cousin, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. He spent his holidays, as the story goes, between Aix-les-Bains and Denmark, where relatives lived: the family was linked to most of the royal houses of Europe. From 8 September 1900 he was listed on the rolls of the Nevsky Imperial Regiment and its 1st Company.

In 1896, together with his elder brothers Constantine and George, he took part in organising the Summer Olympic Games in Athens, the first held in many centuries. Nicholas was president of the sub-committee for shooting.

On 29 August 1902, at Tsarskoye Selo, he married his second cousin, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna, daughter of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. They had three daughters: Olga (1903–1997), who married the Yugoslav prince Paul Karageorgevich; Elizabeth (1904–1955), wife of the Bavarian count Carl Theodor of Toerring-Jettenbach; and Marina (1906–1968), who became the wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, son of the British king George V. The girls were brought up by an English nanny, Kate Fox, whom they called “Nurnie”. Elena’s dowry, customary for a Russian grand duchess, came to one million roubles, and it noticeably improved her husband’s position. In the autumn of 1902 the couple bought a large neoclassical house on Vasilissis Sofias Avenue in the centre of Athens, built in the 1880s to a design by Ernst Ziller for the banker Stefanos Psychas. The royal architect Anastasios Metaxas added a second block in Ziller’s manner, linked to the first by a glazed atrium. The family moved into the renovated “Nicholas Palace” in 1904.

His father’s bequest included the Royal Theatre of Greece. In 1935 Nicholas transferred it to the Greek state. He was a friend of George Simitis and godfather to his son Kostas, the future prime minister of Greece. The prince also wrote plays, was fond of tennis and was a member of the Athens Tennis Club.

In 1917, after the abdication of King Constantine I, Nicholas and his family left Greece. He went to Switzerland and then settled in France, where, to support his family, he gave lessons in drawing and painting. The Russian Revolution and the royal family’s second exile, in 1923, deprived the couple of their income; in the 1920s the house in Athens was leased to the Hotel Grande Bretagne as a luxury annex of sixty beds, and later housed the Norwegian and Italian embassies. Italy bought the building from the prince’s widow in 1955, and the embassy is still there.

In 1936 the family returned to Athens. Nicholas died there on 8 February 1938 and was buried in the royal tomb at Tatoi.