Hanging out with Mama

A coloured black and white photograph of Grand Duchesses Anastasia and Maria with their mother Empress Alexandra. I love this picture because Alexandra always looks so severe and angry so any of the pictures with her children in a non-formal situation seem to show the softer and kinder side of her. I could almost believe this Alexandra to play pillowfights with her children like she did according to the memoirs of people who worked for the Imperial Family. Yeah she has severe expression but the fact that they are wearing nightgowns and seem to be on a terrace of some kind gives the idea that the not-smiling is because she was told to do so in pictures as a child and hasn't gotten used of smiling in them yet (most smiling Alexandra pictures seem to be "paparazzi" pictures taken by her kids at a random moment when she actually smiled).