Alexander Sokolov lived a long and eventful life. He was born in 1827, shortly after the Decembrist uprising, during the era of Romanticism in art, and died in 1913, on the eve of World War I, when Russian Modernism had already become a significant artistic movement. However, Sokolov remained a supporter of the realistic school. In 1881, he joined the Wanderers and began exhibiting his works at the All-Russian exhibitions. Alexander Sokolov repeatedly created portraits of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and other women from the imperial family. In 1882, he was invited to create the 'Coronation Album of Alexander III', where he painted portraits of Alexander III and his wife, Empress Maria Feodorovna. As one of the outstanding artists of the empire, Sokolov served as the curator of the Museum of the Academy of Arts from 1889 and became a full member of the Academy in 1896.

Contemporaries highly valued the work of Alexander Sokolov. Today, his works are remembered less often, although they are in the collections of the Russian Museum and the Tretyakov Gallery.