Response to Reply # 3: You are most welcome! It's not the number of breast star orders that bedevil me (fot the Imperial Russian ones are indeed relatively few), but it's the carelessness with which even the TRUE artists of the time ATTEMPT to depict them in general shape, placement and color. They usually wind up, as jumbled, overlapping masses/blobs of color. This occasionally extends to the ribbands of orders, too. The adornment simply became secondary to their features, even though the accurate clothing/uniforms were available. As a related "side-bar,TODAY, the many would-be "colorists" here who drool over eye-color and debate endlessly the minute shades of hair color, FREQUENTLY take NO time to research decorations on state/formal illustrations, thus bedecking especially the Granduchesses with stars of wrong color and ribbands of imaginary hues. The colors of their everyday dresses are almost totally imaginary, as most of the original colors are unknown, (but conversely, uniforms and decorations HAVE specified, recorded colors, which CAN be, but are seldom, researched), leaving the young colorists to enrapturously praise each other for their "STUNNING" works, when in truth most have utterly no idea of accuracy. And these appaling combinations, potentially in hues that didn't even exist then, are passed on to "newbies." who may believe them to be "just like what THEY wore!" AP
