In early 1917, during the final years of the Romanov dynasty, the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II—Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia—contracted measles, which caused significant hair loss.

As a practical response, the sisters shaved their heads to manage the patchy hair loss caused by the illness, a common practice at the time for patients recovering from diseases like measles or typhus.

Despite the immense stress surrounding their family due to World War I and rising revolutionary pressures in Russia, the daughters were photographed by their French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, looking cheerful and playful.

Gilliard noted in his diary that the princesses often wore scarves to cover their heads, but on this occasion, they removed them on a signal from Olga to surprise him and their parents.These photographs remain poignant visual records of the Romanov family’s personal life during a period of historical turmoil.

By the time of the family's execution in July 1918, the sisters’ hair had grown back to shoulder length, marking a brief but striking moment in their lives captured in these rare images.