Maria Niscemi Romanoff

Maria Valguarnera di Niscemi, Princess Alexander Romanoff, died peacefully at her home in New York on September 29, 2023, at the age of 91. She was born Princess Maria Valguarnera di Niscemi on November 29, 1931, in Palermo, Sicily, to Corrado Valguarnera, Principe di Niscemi, and Margaret Hirsh. Mimi enjoyed a palace childhood in Palermo and moved during the war to attend the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Overbrook, Philadelphia, near her mother's place of birth. Her cousin was Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, author of The Leopard. Before settling in New York, she studied jewelry design in Philadelphia, Paris, and Wichita. In 1971, she married her husband of 31 years, HIH Prince Alexander of Russia, great-nephew of Czar Nicholas II. In 1973, the couple moved into a duplex on Fifth Avenue that would become her lifetime home. Mrs. Romanoff was an internationally known designer of women's costume jewelry, and her jewelry and accessories graced the covers of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar in the 1960s and 70s. The Mimi di N Design belt buckles are classics, with collectors across the globe, and she created jewelry for many well-known women, including Jacqueline Onassis and the Duchess of Windsor. Anyone who knew Mimi well, will remember her astute and creative intelligence and assured aristocratic manner. She was preceded in death by her husband in 2002, and last year by her sister, Margherita Valguarnera Niscemi. Her executor will announce a Mass and reception in the coming weeks.