OTMAA's Formal Photos

[Justine]

Thank you for the date

[Abby]

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=otma191680percent2ac.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a262/margaritamarkovna/Romanov%20Photos/otmawhiteflowercrossbodice.jpg

Hey guys thanks for these pictures! I have never seen them before in any of the books. Do you know where they are from?  

[Sarushka]

The quotation you gave, matushka, is almost identical to this English excerpt from The Complete Wartime Correspondence:
(11 August 1916)
"The girls have been photographed whole afternoon by Funk, as they needed new ones for giving away to their committees etc."

So, I think matushka is right!

Is it possible that the two younger Grand Duchesses, not having committees of their own, were not photographed individually that day?

[Sarushka]

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=otma191680percent2ac.jpg

The first time I saw that photo was when I posted it for Aliss Kande a few months ago (before she had her own photo account). She told me it had come from a Finnish magazine. Later, tian79 posted a higher quality scan of it, but I don't know what her source was.

[matushka]

Sarushka, I do not think so. The youngest did not have their own comitee, but they were almost every afternoon at their lazaret, they had their own sanitary train, where they go with their mother. So they also need portraits, I am quite certain. The problem is, as it seems to me, that these pictures were evidently not made public and most of them were given to people of all classes, to soldiers and just before the revolution with all her consequences. Probably most of these pictures were lost or destroyed in those time of great troubles. Probably also some of them are in old photographic albums of descendants of some of these officers and soldiers. We do not know them (as for Olga) and one day will cross them, hopefully. Tatiana's one are more or less famous because Tatiana and her comitee were more famous as the other 3 GD.
Of course, all that is only my own guess, I can be totally wrong!

[Justine]

In my opinion you're right, Matushka and I hope one day we'll see photos of Maria and Olga.

[matushka]

By the way, does anyone know who is Funk? Was he an official photograph for the IF?

[grandduchess_42]

 

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=otma191680percent2ac.jpg

The first time I saw that photo was when I posted it for Aliss Kande a few months ago (before she had her own photo account). She told me it had come from a Finnish magazine. Later, tian79 posted a higher quality scan of it, but I don't know what her source was.

Here is a bigger version

[RealAnastasia]

How grown up they looks in the last pic! Sadly, Anastasia is always with her hair hanging down...We have very few photos of her with her hair pinned up as a grown up lady....

RealAnastasia.

[Justine]

I love this photo, girls look so beautiful. Thank you for posting

[Sarushka]

You know, I was all set to agree with Lanie that this photo of Anastasia was taken in 1914, but the more I look, the more I'm not so sure:


Look at these shots of the 1914 dresses:

Three things stand out:
1. The beading extends all the way to the neckline
2. The neckline itself is wide and relatively low
3. The bodice forms a large, beaded square

The 1916 dresses, on the other hand, have different features.
1. Significantly narrower necklines
2. No beading along the upper edge
3. The bodices form a sort of cross-over, triangular shape between the bust and the waist


I think Anastasia's dress in the "mystery photo" conforms more closely to the 1916 style. Thoughts, anyone?

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

I agree, Sarushka.  Anastasia's face looks much more mature than in the 1914 picture, her hair is the same as in the 1916 and the dress itself is different.  I would be very surprised if that photograph was taken in the 1914 session.

It is so interesting that we only have Tatiana and possibly Anastasia sole formal pictures, and none of Olga and Maria from 1916.  Why would only Tatiana and Anastasia's pictures have survived?

Is it possible that Olga and Maria didn't have sole pictures taken? And if Matushka is correct about the dating from the wartime correspondence, that would explain why Alexei is not there as well; it was a photo shoot just for the girls.

Why are the 1916 pictures so rare, can I ask? And when were the last formal photos taken of the WHOLE family?

Rachel
xx

[grandduchess_42]

i am!

[grandduchess_42]

i agree
she looks more elagent and 'punctual' in the 1914 shoot
she looks smaller and more childlike in the 1916 shoot.

[matushka]

Sarushka, I totally agree with you: actually, I never thought this picture could be a 1914's one. She looks more mature. It seems also that her bands are shorter in 1916.
Rachel, we do not know, of course, why Anastasia and Tatiana's pictures are known and Maria and Olga's ones disapear. But my guess is that Tatiana, as already written was more popular at those times and her comitee really very active and I would suggest that more of her pictures were given. As for Anastasia, the Anna Anderson's history made her famous and her pictures were searched and used for the resolution of this problem... or just to answer to the curiosity of fascinated people. I am sure Olga and Maria's pictures exist somewhere, in Russian archives and in private archives. There is so much things which have not yet been explored!
Why are these shots rare? As I think, because most of them were given from hand to hand by the GD to people and was not officialy diffused in Russia.
Only my guess...
As for Alexei, he was at Moghilev.
I do not remember official portraits of the whole family after 1913...