A Russian suede leather photograph album containing thirty-five late nineteenth- & early twentieth-century Russian, German, & English photographs of members of the Thiess-Stewart family, a prominent Saint Petersburg family of English, German, & Italian descent. Photographs were taken by & printed on the trade cards of numerous Russian Imperial court photographers, including Pasetti, Bergamasco, Wulf (Wolf) Yasvoin, A. Anderson, N. Abragamson, Avantso, K. Shapiro, E. Breuer, Russert & Fliege, A. Metkel, A. Fokht, Ya. Leitsenger (Arkhangelsk), Atelier Bluhm (Cologne), Hanns Hanfstaengel (Dresden), Hahn (Dresden), & Warinck Booker (Manchester). The suede album with gilt-edged pages, several printed with colorful flowers, & raised on four brass feet. Dimensions of album: 11 1/2″ x 9″ (29.5 x 22.5 cm).

In 1987, after the deaths of its last members, the tragic lives of the émigré Thiess-Stewart family transfixed Finland’s public. John Thiess & his wife Victoria Stewart, together with her mother & their five children, had lived privileged lives in Saint Petersburg. John Thiess had had a very successful import-export business based in England & Russia, affording his family a life of wealth & comfort. They were forced into what they hoped would be temporary exile in 1916 or 1917 (accounts vary). They traveled from Saint Petersburg to Finland with what they only deemed necessary & which nevertheless filled two train cars. (The second car, containing furnishings, was seized by Bolshevik forces at the border.) Almost all of their wealth had been left behind in Russia. The family, who had spoken Russian, English, French, & German, were forced to learn Finnish in order to make new lives in their adopted homeland. They purchased a home called Villa Solgård in Littoinen, near Turku, & lived mostly from the sale of jewelry & other property. Language barriers, economic failures, & the difficulties of adjusting to life as impoverished exiles proved to be too difficult. John Thiess took his own life in 1927, as did three of his five children in the following years. Twin sisters Eleanor & Irene (1901-1987), called Nora & Rina, survived the longest. Irene, or Rina, Thiess-Stewart, worked as a nurse in England from 1919 to 1966. She returned to Finland & the sisters spent their final years together in Villa Solgård. Having never become accustomed to a life without servants, they lived in squalor, often without heat or warm water & with dirty dishes piling up in the basement. Unwilling or unable to seek help from Finnish authorities, the twin sisters died in 1987, in part from their desperate living conditions. An auction of their remaining property brought their extraordinary story to public attention & researchers began to comb through the family’s archive, dating to the eighteenth century, which the family had brought from Russia & which was transferred to Turku Regional Archives in 1987. Their unique & difficult lives were dramatized in “The Sun House” (Auringon talo, 1990), an opera by the internationally-renowned composer Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928-2016), Pirjo-Riitta Tähti’s 1991 play & 2000 novel “With love, your sister” (Rakkaudella sisaresi), & Laura Saloluoma’s thesis “’Fråga icke vem jag varit’ – pietarilaisen Eleanor Thiessin emigrantti-identiteetin rakentuminen Suomessa 1900-luvun alkupuoliskolla” (University of Turku, 2009).