Portrait Lives: Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia

It's Portrait Lives Wednesday!
Every Wednesday features a Portrait Lives, which is a weekly post showing the age progression in specific historical figures through contemporary portraits of them. Way more fun than it sounds.

Her family:
In order from left to right: Olga, Maria, Czar Nicholas II,
Alix or Alexandra, Anastasia, Alexi, and Tatiana 

Anastasia along with her family was executed during the 1918 Revolution in Russia. She was part of the royal family, the youngest and fourth daughter of the Czar Nicholas II. Her brother was born about 4-5 years after her and he was killed when 13 years old.
For years after her execution, there were rumors that Anastasia was supposedly still alive. People even claimed that they were in fact the supposed Duchess, the most famous was Anna Anderson. Not until Anastasia's body was found did the rumors die down.
She was just a young woman aged 17 when she was killed violently. It is sad that her and her sisters and young brother had to die to surmount a revolution.

A Portrait Lives for Grand Duchess Anastasia:

1. about 1 year old

3. about 4

2. about 3 years old

4. about 5 years old with her siblings 

5. about 6 years old

6. about 8 years old with her brother

7. about 10

8. about 13 years old

9. about 14 years

10. about 14 years 

11. about 15 years

12. 15 years old, now in home arrest with her siblings. She is
the second most to the right with the dog.

13. aged about 16 years old 

14. about 17 still in captivity

15. forensic facial reconstruction at 17 years old

Maria and Anastasia making funny faces

Some Bonus Informal and Funny Photos:

her father letting her take a smoke

Anastasia with her brother, Alexi 

Check out

Sources:
Livadia.org
Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Portrait Lives: Marie Antoinette: Part 2

Marie Antoinette has too many portraits to put in just one post.

profile at aged about 26

aged  about 28

aged about 30 with her children

aged about 32

aged about 33

aged about 36

aged about 37-8 in prison

aged about 38

her death, on her way

her death, more, Marie is like oops i stepped on your foot.

After a bad haircut, she was executed at a quarter after 12 pm in a white gown, whites are easily stained so it was never worn again.

Sources: 

My mind, 

Remembering Marie-Antoinette: The Martyr, the Whore, and the Icon: http://www.uta.edu/modl/cultural-constructions/200705/html/kilgore.html

Marie Antoinette: http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/historians-craft/marieantoinetteinthepubliceye/

It's Late Portrait Lives Wednesday! Starring Marie Antoinette: Part 1

Marie Antoinette is the most famous person of the French Revolution. As many people know she didn't survive it.  She was to the French people of her time the image and icon of unfair extravagance as some poor french people starved. The media showed her as a sickly evil harpy in newspaper pamphlets, a queen who would stoop so low as to having lesbian relationships with her ladies-in-waiting, when the truth was nothing of the kind. The truth was that the press can cause horrible things to happen to innocent people, even Marie Antoinette, a high-status French Queen who was imprisoned by her people and executed by the guillotine.

aged just a few months old

aged  about 5

aged 7

aged about 12

aged about 14

aged about 17 by Drouais

Marie, Queen of France without a crown at aged about 18

mid twenties by Gautier-Dagoty 

I thought I could do this in one post but I can't 

so stay tuned for the last part tomorrow!

I know you can't wait and are disappointed.

But here a short video about her that will make up:

and Check out

To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette

Click on the image or go to the Scaffold!

The Artist Gainsborough's Last Words

Gainsborough

An officer of the 4th Regiment of Foot
by Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough, a brilliant often called 'genius' at painting in the 18th century. What little people know is that he once identified a thief. His father once predicted that he would be hanged, but once he saw how great his son Tom was at art he declared 'Tom will be a genius.' He was interested in
nature especially, and his portraits showed great natural backgrounds. So it fits knowing who he is that his last words would be art inspired. His words were

"We are all going to heaven, and van Dyke is of the company."

An Italian Painting by van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck ('van Dyck') was a 17th century painter whose masterful grasp of painting the feel and look of cloth dazzled people. Gainsborough must have admired the work of van Dyck.








Sources:
Familiar Short Sayings of Familiar Men by S. A. Bent, 1887. Don't be fooled! This book isn't about sayings, it is about quotes and not all of them are from men. http://www.bartleby.com/344/183.html
Entries of Anthony van Dyck and Thomas Gainsborough in The Dictionary of National Biography on Wikisource.

Last Words: Saint Louise-Marie of France or Mother Therese

Louise at 9

  "To paradise! Fast! At great gallop!"*

 These were Louise's last words in the late December of 1787. You can call her Mother Therese if you really want to show the fact she is a nun, I don't think she would really care what you call her.  She was born in 1737, the daughter of King Louis XV and his wife.
She had the bad fortune of having  partially defected leg because of an accident as a child, but still had a high self-confidence through her life.
She became a nun because of she believed she was miraculously cured after she survived an event when she was young which caused her to almost die.  She came out very religious.  She joined the Nun order at Mount Carmel. She became a Carmelite! (a real word)
She was in nun servitude for 13 years. Till, which has been said on Carmelnet she was poisoned by her father's enemies. I really don't think that was the case.
They said dramatically: "In Dec, 1787, the attempt [of murder] was repeated by means of a packet of false relics sprinkled with poison. After having opened the packet, mother Teresa immediately fell
ill.

Louise, now Mother Therese in full nun gear.

Is it really possible for someone to fall ill suddenly from poison? Usually it has to build up in the body, least I thought it did. Reportedly she had complained of stomach problems and she fell ill and then died.
And the question comes to mind about her supposed murder : Why kill a nun? Shouldn't killing a nun be bad luck? Any nun is harmless; not that they carry machine guns or plot conspiracies on a regular basis or anything. Why would they care anything about her, even if she is the king's daughter, she is also a nun.


Sources:
1. Her English Wikipedia page. Note: Don't get me wrong, just little structural facts from there and see lines below.
*I had to get the quote from Wikipedia because her words vary widely across the sources. Since Wikipedia had the original french wording, I thought it would be better translate it myself.No Google Translate, I know french. it was said as "Au paradis! Vite! Au grand galop!"
2. Venerable Therese of St. Augustine by Prof Plinio: http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j052sdMadameLouise12-23.htm

3. TERESA OF ST. AUGUSTINE (Louise of France, 1737-1787) 
Venerable (D): http://carmelnet.org/biographies/TeresaStAugustine.pdf

There's quotables and there's Last Word quotables, which are a little more interesting compared to a regular quote.  So with this post I will start another segment-- not surprisingly called Last Words.

The Princes in the Tower that Disappeared Forever

There names were Edward and Richard and they were set for life to be important royal figures until...they disappeared. They were the only sons of Edward IV of England, the king, to survive unto adulthood. Their father died in April 1483, the eldest Edward mentioned above was now king.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King! 

A somewhat contradictory chant used when a king dies in England and another is crowned.

The young brothers arrived in London, to have Edward's coronation. The children were oblivious to their uncle's plan to be king, their uncle's name was Richard. Meanwhile, the young brothers were kept in the Tower of London before the coronation, it wasn't unusual for monarchs to be kept there.  Eventually, the coronation was postponed, though...indefinitely by their Uncle Richard.
Richard seized the throne and declared the boys illegitimate. Richard then had a coronation crowning himself Richard III.

Imagined Representation of the Princes
 by Sir John Everett Millais

But it is time, Richard may have thought to himself, to get rid of those boys once and for all. For the boys "were seen less and less [playing outside the tower] until they disappeared altogether."(Wikipedia)

We may never know what happened to those boys. In William Shakespeare's Richard III, the children were murdered by being suffocated with a pillow.  Edward was 13 around the time of his disappearance and his brother, Richard, was 9. It is sad to think such innocent children had to be "gotten rid of."

Their bodies may be the ones that were found in 1674 by workmen when remodeling the Tower of London. They were way underneath the stairs that were leading to the White Chapel in a wooden box. Supposing that these may be the Princes, King Charles II (the party king) ordered that these bones be interred in an urn in Westminster Abbey. In 1933, these bones were examined and found to be two childrens' and found to be the correct age to be the Princes'. But no carbon dating has been used on the bones and we do not know if the bones are even both of male children so they still are not totally confirmed to be Princes'.

]

Carlos, the Mad Heir that died at 23.

Carlos, 2 years after his fall from stairs

At first Carlos was just a weird result of inbreeding and mental instability, his parents were like half siblings in the eyes of genetics. But after an accidental trip down the stairs that caused head trauma, he became insane. In one story, when he was given smaller shoes, smaller than he liked, he in all his insanity forced the shoemaker to eat them. He became so reckless, that he even had some thoughts about murdering his father, King Philip II.

Philip II

Philip recognized how dangerous his son was becoming, and ordered him to be kept prisoner in his (Carlos') rooms. This act and being stuck in a prison, caused Carlos to become suicidal, though not taking any action, since threatening was all enough. Meanwhile he was becoming every day more sick in his prison and eventually his time came, and he died after six months of being in there.
At least that is the account.
Rumors spread after his death that Philip had killed him in a result of a love affair between the prince and Philip's new wife. But really will you believe those?



Sources:
Wikipedia and
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=morris&book=spanish&story=reckless this is a really interesting story about Carlos, I recommend reading it.

Sad Quotable: Archduke Karl Joseph of Austria

Karl Joseph

Karl Joseph was the short lived and favorite son of Maria Theresa of Austria and Francis I. He had many siblings including Marie Antoinette of Austria.

When he died just before his sixteenth birthday of smallpox, his mother cried at his bedside. He said this moving quote to her as she did:

"You should not weep for me, dear mother, for had I lived, I would have brought you many more tears[!]"