This photo of Olga, Marie and Tatiana , dressed for the last Imperial Russian state funeral in 1915 has been known to me for a long time.
Over the last 3 plus months I have been using it as a reference for a painting. I have enlarged it to half life size in order to study it closely.
I thought I knew this photo, but it's revealing things to me all the time and some might be of interest to others.
The biggest surprise so far is realizing Olga's veil did not stop at her waist as it appears. But it went to the ground. It's all that material on her left ( our right) is crape veil. It's actually had a somewhat open weave. In the 2nd photo, one can see the difference in the material of her dress and of the veil and see where it appears to end, it's merely folded. It continues down to the ground . Oh and I should remark on the amazing black on black embroidery strips, also visible in the 2nd photo here. They are on either side of Olga's tunic , it continues down in one line in the front of her dress. The dress is stunning really and we know Tatiana was most likely dressed this way as well .
Another interesting surprise for me was finding Olga's hat brim. All this time I thought it was type of cap simply on her head...but there is a brim . Only a part is clearly visual . Also she has a bow on her hat ....which looked like her hair to me all this time. But her hair,as was custom , is in a wave close to her head.
I crudely out lined what I'm talking about, but I left the small part of the brim that is touched by the sun and visible, without a mark so you can see it. I also found a piece of the wicker chair both Marie and Olga are sitting on. It can bee seen between Olga's knee and Marie's calf .Mostly what one sees is a difference in texture...and there is your clue. What helps to really see the photo is enlarging it of course...but most of what I discovered imo came from making a painting of it. Because everything has to make sense in a painting and so one seeks and looks harder for what is really happening .
There are lights dots on the side of Olga's face in shadow and I realized these are coming from Marie's Order of St. Catherine. I would think diamond sun glare was a Romanov hazard!
