41. Anonymous duchesses olga & anastasia, c.1914 Gelatin silver print, original letter, address label and book. The photograph is annotated in pencil on verso in unknown hand ‘Duchesses Olga & Anastasia’, 103x708mm.
Includes the original letter with which it was was posted to Hugh C. M. Pitts, Esq from General Dietrichs/Deytrikh. Dieterichs was one of Admiral Kolchak’s principal aides who was in possession of the personal effects of the Imperial Family. The photograph had originally been posted care of Princess Marina at Kensington Palace. Also present is the original address label stamped "Kensington Palace, Office of Princess Marina". Princess Marina was daughter of the Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, a granddaughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. The letter is on headed paper, with the typed address of ‘15a Sussex Mansions, Old Brompton Rd, SW7’ written to Mr Pitts, from N. Deytrikh. It reads "It is a very great pleasure to me, to be able to send you the last snapshot of the Eldest Olga & the youngest Anastasia, Grandes Duchesses, shortly before the greatest tragedy of our time…".
Addressed to "Hugh C. M. Pitts, Rose Cottage, White Cross, Zeals, Warminster, Wiltshire".
Includes the book ‘Tutor to the Tsarevich, An intimate portrait of the last days of the Russian Imperial Family’ compiled from the papers of Charles Sydney Gibbes by J.C. Trewin.
est. £800 – £1200
The photograph is similar to the original negatives and captions made by Pierre Gilliard (1879-1962) dated 1914-1915 in his diaries held in the collections of Musée de l'Elysée, Switzerland. The Swiss Pierre Gilliard was devoted to the Imperial family, and in 1905 was asked to tutor the Grand Duchesses Olga,Tatiana, and later Anastasia and Olga Nikolaïevna. In 1912, he become the private tutor of Alexis Nicolaïevitch, the tsarevitch.
After the Bolshevik Revolution of February 1917, he followed them into exile at Tsarkoïe-Seloand Tobolsk, then Ekaterinburg, where he was prevented from following them further to Ekaterinburg. After the murder of the family on the night of 17th July 1918, Gilliard remained until the White Army arrived, and then stayed behind for three years after the family’s death, assisting Nikolai Sokolov with the investigations. In 1921, Gilliard married in Switzerland Aleksandra “Shura” Tegleva who had served as nanny to the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.
His memoirs, ‘Thirteen Years at the Russian Court’, reveal intimate reports of the lives of the last Imperial Family and include a similar photograph to this, taken outside the house of a railway worker, near Mohilev, the headquarters of the Russian Army during the war 1914-1918.