On May 20, 1910, in London, one of the rarest and most symbolic photographs in history was taken: nine European monarchs, dressed in uniform, smiling, standing side by side, posed together for a once-in-a-lifetime event. Today, that picture is known as “Nine Kings in One Photo”, and looking at it more than a century later feels like witnessing a world on the verge of collapse, unaware of the storm that was about to come.

The occasion was the funeral of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, a central figure of European aristocracy, nicknamed “the Uncle of Europe” for his family ties with nearly every royal court. Monarchs traveled from across the continent to attend. The photograph was taken in one of the luxurious rooms of Windsor Castle, during a rare pause between official ceremonies and solemn processions.

Who were the nine kings? Among them were figures destined to become either protagonists or victims of the great upheavals of the 20th century. In the famous photograph, you can recognize (top row, left to right): King Haakon VII of Norway, King Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, King Manuel II of Portugal, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King George I of Greece, and King Albert I of Belgium; (bottom row, left to right): King Alfonso XIII of Spain, King George V of the United Kingdom, and King Frederick VIII of Denmark.

Many of them were cousins, bound by dynastic marriages and a dense web of family alliances. Yet, only a few years later, those ties would prove powerless to prevent the outbreak of the First World War, during which some of these monarchs would lose their thrones, while others watched helplessly as the very order they embodied collapsed.

This is what makes the photograph so powerful: it feels like a group portrait taken at the end of an era. A frozen moment in which Europe’s aristocracy appears united, elegant, and authoritative. None of those nine men could have imagined that within just ten years, at least four of their monarchies would vanish, swept away by wars, revolutions, or simply the unstoppable tide of modernity.