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Sophia is the only daughter of Emperor Alexander I. Maria Antonovna Naryshkina: biography

Marriages of Russian emperors were always carried out by agreement and calculation, but this does not mean that persons of royal blood did not know what real feelings were.

The kings' favorites had influence in society, which helped them improve their financial situation. Of course, many lovers experienced real feelings, as evidenced by the numerous love letters that have survived to this day.

1. Ekaterina Dolgorukova (favorite of Alexander II)

Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova came from a princely family and was a true aristocrat. Emperor Alexander II was very friendly with her family, so he often visited them on the estate. When he met Catherine, she was only 12 years old. After the death of Mikhail Dolgorukov, the emperor provided assistance to his family: in particular, he educated all his children, including Catherine herself. When the girl was 16 years old, the emperor met her again. He fell in love, and the feeling was mutual. However, Catherine refused to become another of the Tsar’s many mistresses.

After Alexander II's wife, Maria Alexandrovna, fell ill with tuberculosis, doctors prescribed her celibacy. Then Catherine, knowing what advantages a relationship with the Tsar would bring to her family, nevertheless agreed to become his mistress. The emperor even made her his wife's maid of honor so that he could always be with her.

The favorite gave birth to four children for Alexander. She even wanted to place one of her children on the imperial throne, bypassing the legitimate heirs. After the death of his wife, Alexander married Catherine.

The royal family never accepted their mistress. After a successful attempt by anarchists on Alexander II, she was not allowed into the church for the funeral service. After the death of the emperor, she emigrated with her children to France.

2. Maria Naryshkina (mistress of Alexander I)

Born a Polish princess, at the age of 16 Maria married Dmitry Naryshkin. The girl attracted attention at all the balls not only with her beautiful appearance, but also with her incredible taste in clothes and jewelry.

It is not surprising that Emperor Alexander I fell in love with her at first sight. With her husband's blessing, Maria became the emperor's mistress in 1799. Alexander and Maria even appeared together at balls and various ceremonies, despite the fact that the emperor had a legal wife, Elizabeth.

Naryshkina was adored by both the court and the royal family. She even planned to force the emperor to divorce his wife and marry her. Everything favored her: the emperor demonstrated their relationship for everyone to see as if he was not married at all. However, these plans were not destined to come true: for unknown reasons, Alexander refused to divorce his wife. In 1814, their whirlwind romance ended unexpectedly. During this relationship, Mary gave birth to five children, at least four of whom were from the king. However, Naryshkin recognized all five and gave them his last name.

3. Anna Lopukhina (favorite of Paul I)

Like all the famous mistresses of Russian tsars, born into a noble family, Lopukhina struck Emperor Paul I in the heart when she was 19 years old. Seeing her at the ball, the emperor ordered her family to move to St. Petersburg, and he gave high ranks to many family members at court. So after the move, Anna’s father received the title of His Serene Highness and the position of Prosecutor General.

Despite her small stature and not particularly attractive, Anna won the heart of Pavel, and for her sake he performed almost knightly deeds worthy of a love story. Painting the walls of the Mikhailovsky Palace the color of Anna's gloves or naming ships after her are just some of his gestures. In 1799, unable to withstand pressure from society due to her relationship with the emperor, Lopukhina ended her relationship with Pavel and married another man. The Emperor did not interfere with her marriage to her childhood friend, Prince Gagarin, but in his heart he hoped that his beloved would return to him. However, his dream was not destined to come true, because two years after their breakup he was killed.

4. Matilda Kshesinskaya (mistress of Nicholas II)

A prima ballerina of Polish origin, Matilda met Nikolai at one of her performances when she was 17 years old. Falling in love with her at first sight, Nicholas II bought her a luxurious mansion in St. Petersburg, where they met for 4 years while their relationship lasted. Known for her ruthless and ambitious nature, Matilda often used her relationship with the emperor to gain fame and increase influence in the imperial theater. She was not only a very gifted dancer, but also a capricious, stubborn woman, ready to do anything to destroy her rivals. Despite his great passion and affection for Matilda, Nicholas broke up with her in 1894, when his father died and he was about to marry the future Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

Matilda later began affairs with two grand dukes from the Romanov family: cousins Sergei Mikhailovich and Andrei Vladimirovich. In 1902, she gave birth to a son and admitted that she had no idea which of the two was his father. Later she married Andrei Vladimirovich and after the October Revolution she moved with him to Paris. There she opened a prestigious ballet school, which was attended by such legendary ballerinas as Margot Fonteyn and Tatyana Ryabushinskaya. In 1971, Matilda died, just 8 months short of her 100th birthday.

Grigory Ivanovich Gagarin and his wife Ekaterina Petrovna nee Soimonova had five sons - the eldest was Grigory. In the Gagarin family, the eldest son was always called Grigory.

The Patriotic War forced Prince G.I. Gagarin to make a major sacrifice: during the Patriotic War of 1812, at his own expense, he formed and equipped an entire regiment of militias, which, according to the Tsar’s decree, was called “Gagarin”; Gagarin was ordered to be called the chief of his regiment.
The career of G.I. Gagarin was successful at first. However, on one of the unlucky days (or happy? where is happiness, where is misfortune - I wish I knew...) of 1813, the famous beauty Maria Antonovna Naryshkina, wife of Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, mistress of Alexander I, paid “special attention” to him.
Grand Duke Alexander, not yet an emperor, and the former favorite of Catherine II Platon Zubov immediately after Dmitry Lvovich’s wedding began to show Maria Antonovna Naryshkina their persistent attention. Having become emperor, Alexander I received an undeniable advantage over Zubov in the struggle for the attention of the delightful Maria.

Emperor Alexander the First was no longer attracted by his wife Elizaveta Alekseevna. Outwardly attractive and friendly, Elizabeth initially shared the early popularity of Alexander Pavlovich; Alexander's grandmother, Catherine II, compared them to Cupid and Psyche
Pushkin himself admired her, and it was to her (!), and not to Anna Petrovna Kern, that the poet dedicated the poem “I Remember a Wonderful Moment.” Recently, the great-great-granddaughter of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Yulia Grigorievna, called me (we have known each other for a long time, since the time when her father, Grigory Grigorievich, the last direct descendant of the poet, was alive). It turns out that this version of the dedication of the famous poem to the emperor’s wife among Pushkin’s descendants is a known fact and is accepted by them.

But the emperor was cold towards his wife.
He actually had a second family with Maria Naryshkina, who bore him three children (in total, 11 illegitimate children are attributed to Alexander),
The relationship between the emperor and Maria Antonovna lasted about 15 years. The result of this relationship were three children, of whom the king madly loved his daughter Sophia.
Contemporaries testify that Maria Antonovna was truly a dazzling beauty. Derzhavin sang her beauty.
Her relationship with the emperor resulted in practically the creation of a second family. She even insisted on the dissolution of the emperor's marriage and official recognition of her as his wife.
The children were all called Naryshkins, despite the fact that Maria Antonovna’s husband knew very well that he was not their father. But, just like Alexander I, he doted on his daughter Sophia. Unfortunately, little Sophia did not live long. By the age of 16, she had become an absolute beauty, just like her mother. At the insistence of Alexander I, Count A.P. Shuvalov was “appointed” as the girl’s groom; the wedding was supposed to take place in the summer of 1825, but Sophia’s days were numbered.
On Christmas night, she saw herself in a dream in a wedding dress, surrounded by flowers... in a coffin. Before the wedding, she was brought a magnificent wedding dress from Paris, but the bride refused to look at it. She knew that she did not have long to live. The wedding did not take place; the bride died quietly and unexpectedly.
No portrait of Sofia Naryshkina has been preserved; we can only trust our contemporaries and believe that she was even more beautiful than her mother.
After the death of his only daughter, Alexander again became close to his wife Elizaveta Alekseevna, who forgave him and tried to ease his suffering. They went to Taganrog together to improve her health. But there, in 1825, the emperor unexpectedly died of typhoid fever.
After his death in Taganrog, a rumor spread that Alexander did not die, but left the bustle of the world for monasticism. This version has a basis: in the last years of his life, Alexander I again often spoke to his loved ones about his intention to abdicate the throne and “retire from the world.” This is how the legend of “elder Fyodor Kuzmich” was born. According to this legend, it was not Alexander who died and was then buried in Taganrog, but his double, while the tsar lived for a long time as an old hermit in Siberia and died in 1864.
His wife Elizaveta soon died of consumption in Belevo, Tula province; according to other sources, she hid in the Pskov wilderness under the name of the nun Vera the Silent.
But we've run too far, let's go back to 1813. So, M.A. Naryshkina fell in love with Grigory Ivanovich, the emperor gave vent to his offended feelings. The beauty was ordered to travel, and the Secretary of State was dismissed. In 1813, Naryshkina and Gagarin went abroad. But after three years they separated, and each of them returned to their abandoned spouses.
And in order not to return to the topic of Gagarin - Naryshkina, let’s briefly follow her further fate
Maria Antonovna was grieving the loss of her daughter and after the funeral she and her husband D.L. Naryshkin goes outside Russia, where she heard about the death of the emperor.
The Naryshkins settled in Odessa in 1833. Few of the residents of Odessa recognized the thin, middle-aged woman, who occasionally appeared on the boulevard with an elderly gentleman in an old-fashioned doublet and long frock coat, as a socialite “lioness” - the beloved of the Emperor of Russia Alexander I. Many who met her in the Cathedral knew that the old man, relentlessly next to Naryshkina is none other than her husband Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin.
After the death of Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, her faithful husband, in 1838, Maria Antonovna first went to Western Europe, and after some time to Palestine. She spent almost a year among the novices of the monastery of St. Catherine, on the Sinai Peninsula.
Maria Antonovna repents at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and at the Western Wall, donates funds to the Jewish community.
In her last years, Naryshkina lived in Europe and died in 1854, having long outlived her lovers and husband (if you do not mean the version of “Father Fyodor Kuzmich,” who, according to legend, died in 1864)
(By the way, the diploma sent to A.S. Pushkin, among other lampoons that led to his tragic death, speaks specifically about Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, the wife of Maria Antonovna. Here is the exact translation from French (the diploma was written in French):
“The Knights of the First Degree, Commanders and Knights of the Most Serene Order of Cuckolds, having gathered in the Grand Chapter under the chairmanship of the Honorable Grand Master of the Order, His Excellency D.L. Naryshkin, unanimously elected Mr. Alexander Pushkin as Coadjutor of the Grand Master of the Order of Cuckolds and Historiographer of the Order. Permanent Secretary Count I. Borch.")

All this backstory had to be told in order to explain why Grigory Grigorievich spent his childhood and youth abroad - his father was actually sent into “honorable exile” for his connection with M.A. Naryshkina - until the end of his life he was on diplomatic work far from Russia . He died in 1837 in Bavaria.
Grigory Grigorievich met with Karl Bryullov at his father’s house, who drew attention to the talented boy who had the gift of a draftsman. Karl Bryullov became the first and only teacher of Gregory the Younger in his field as an artist. That's why this long story was told - about Emperor Alexander, the short-lived love of the boy's father and the beautiful Naryshkina. After all, all this ultimately, by the will of fate, led to the appearance of an outstanding artist in Russia - Grigory Grigorievich Gagarin.
Nothing is accidental in this life...

About the future fate of Gagarin - next time...

He became famous not only for his military exploits - he is called one of the most loving Russian rulers. He had a beautiful wife who drove poets and courtiers crazy, and several favorites. His affair with Maria Naryshkina was the longest and most serious - they spent 15 years together, Maria gave birth to Alexander I three children. Some sources describe her as a modest, silent beauty, while others describe her as a self-confident and arrogant femme fatale. Who really was the most brilliant favorite of Alexander I?

Alexander I was the grandson of Catherine II and the eldest son of Paul I. Catherine II was involved in raising the future emperor, and she chose a wife for him - Louise-Maria-Augusta of Baden, and after baptism in the Orthodox Church - Elizaveta Alekseevna. She was meek, delicate, impeccably mannered, and also very beautiful. But her virtues were appreciated by everyone except Alexander I.

Maria Naryshkina was not the first favorite of the emperor, but many people call her the only strong passion of Alexander I. All his previous novels were short-lived, but this one lasted 15 years. How was Maria Naryshkina able to conquer the emperor?

Maria was Polish, she came from the princely family of Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky. At the age of 15 she became a maid of honor at the Russian court, and at 16 she was married to Prince Naryshkin. Many wrote about her beauty; G. Derzhavin compared her with the famous heterosexual Aspasia, the wife of Pericles:
Aspasia is dearest to all:
Black eyes with lights,
With his foamy chest
Amazing Athens
Surpasses everyone in appearance;
Eyes of an eagle, souls of a lion
It burns like the sun with beauty.

The English envoy F. Wigel wrote that “her beauty was so perfect that it seemed impossible, unnatural. The ideal features of her face and the impeccability of her figure stood out even more clearly with the ever-present simplicity of her attire.” We cannot fully judge the beauty of the famous favorite - unfortunately, only a few portraits of Maria Antonovna have reached us.

There were various rumors about Naryshkina's moral qualities. According to some contemporaries, she was silent, calm, restrained, kind and tactful. In other sources, she is characterized as a self-confident and arrogant young lady. Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna was outraged by her behavior one day at a ball and complained in a letter to her mother: “For such an act one must have shamelessness, which I could not even imagine. This happened at the ball. I spoke to her like everyone else, asked about her health, she complained of being unwell: “I think I’m pregnant”... She knew very well that I knew who she could be pregnant from.”

Maria Naryshkina had 6 children, 3 of them died in infancy. Officially, everyone was considered the children of her legal husband, although it was no secret to anyone that the father of three of them was the emperor. In 1824, at the age of 16, the daughter of Maria and Alexander I, Sophia, died, and a year later they separated. In 1825, the emperor died of typhoid fever (according to another version, he became a hermit and lived in Siberia under the name of Elder Fedor).

The Grand Duke and Emperor Alexander I (1777–1825) on September 23, 1793, with the blessing of Catherine II, was legally married to Princess Louise Maria Augusta of Baden, who received the name Elizaveta Alekseevna at baptism in the Orthodox Church. According to the unanimous reviews of her contemporaries, she was a very beautiful, educated, impeccably brought up and friendly woman. She charmed not only with her beauty, but with her delicate treatment and attentiveness to the people around her. In court circles, when they wanted to praise some girl or woman, they said: “She is charming and impeccable, like Grand Duchess Elizaveta Alekseevna.” Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich was also handsome, and in the first years of his life together with Elizaveta Alekseevna, they made up an unusually harmonious married couple. But unfortunately for Elizaveta Alekseevna, Alexander I was very fond of beautiful women and therefore, having quickly lost interest in his wife, he often began to have love affairs on the side. Many ladies from the imperial entourage enjoyed his attention, and this was no secret to anyone. But the future emperor, quickly inflamed with feelings for some lady, very quickly cooled towards her, having already become inflamed towards another.

Once at a ball during Maslenitsa (it was in February 1801), Tsarevich Alexander Pavlovich drew attention to a very beautiful court lady from his wife’s retinue. This was Maria Antonovna Naryshkina, the superintendent of Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, Chief Jägermeister of the Highest Court.

Maria Antonovna Naryshkina (1779–1854), née Princess Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, daughter of Prince Anton Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky, was born in Moscow and raised in a family where her aunt, Princess Svyatopolk-Chetvertinskaya, and her two cousins - Princess Trubetskaya and Princess Shakhovskaya - were famous for their charity, the construction of widows' houses in Lefortovo, which have survived to this day, dear readers, and the creation of the Soothe My Sorrows Society of Sisters of Charity, in the building of which medicine still reigns. Maria Antonovna was not devoid of such a civic sense of duty to the poor and suffering. But to a greater extent, she, a zealous Pole, was concerned about the fate of her homeland, divided between three states, and therefore gathered Polish patriots around her. There were rumors that the adoption of the Polish Constitution by the Polish Sejm was not without the participation of Maria Antonovna.

Maria Antonovna's salon was the only place in St. Petersburg where one could talk freely, even about Arakcheev himself, whom, by the way, Maria Antonovna simply hated.

But at the time when Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich drew attention to her, she shone with her beauty and grace at the court balls of Emperor Paul I. Less than a month after the ball, so memorable for the Grand Duke and Maria Antonovna, Emperor Paul was killed by conspirators, and a new period began in the life of Alexander Pavlovich: he became the All-Russian Emperor.

Despite all these difficult, and at the same time joyful events for many, Emperor Alexander I did not forget Maria Antonovna, and over the next almost fourteen years she was his favorite. Although this was not loudly and officially proclaimed at court, as the everyday life writer Vigel once said: “I would not allow myself to talk about her mutual love with Emperor Alexander if it remained a secret to someone.”

The laws of favoritism in force at court did not allow Maria Antonovna’s husband, Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, to somehow clearly react to his wife’s betrayal, and the personality of her lover forced her husband to bow before him to the extreme. The same laws forced Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna to suffer secretly from everyone, including her husband, and to find a comforter for her suffering, a secret lover. In the first years of his relationship with Maria Antonovna, Alexander I was jealous of his beloved, and therefore of those of his subjects who dared to court for Maria Antonovna, sent him on long and distant business trips, and not only to European countries, but also in the opposite direction.

In 1805, Russia took part in the war with Napoleonic army as part of the anti-French coalition, which consisted of England, Turkey and Austria. First, Russian troops won victories: Kutuzov at Krems, then in the Battle of Schöngraben. But on November 20, 1805, the Russians were defeated at Austerlitz, which we have an almost clear idea of through L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace” and his hero Andrei Bolkonsky.

This period of time in the life of Maria Antonovna Naryshkina was noted in his novel “Alexander I” by D. S. Merezhkovsky:

“Soon after Austerlitz, news from St. Petersburg appeared in foreign newspapers: “Mrs. Naryshkina defeated all her rivals. The Emperor visited her on the very first day of his return from the army. Hitherto the connection was secret; now Naryshkina puts her on display, and everyone is on their knees in front of her. This open connection torments the empress."

Once at a court ball, the empress asked Maria Antonovna about her health.

“Not very well,” she answered, “I think I’m pregnant.”

Both knew from whom.

“The behavior of your husband is outrageous, especially small dinners with this creature, in your own office, next to you,” the Grand Duchess of Baden wrote to her daughter, the Russian Empress. There was talk of divorce.

But after twenty years everyone got used to it, and no one was surprised anymore. Marya Antonovna was so good that she didn’t have the courage to condemn her lover.

“With my mouth open, I stood in the theater in front of her box and stupidly marveled at her beauty, so perfect that it seemed unnatural, impossible,” recalled many years later one of Princess Naryshkina’s admirers.

“Tell her that she is an angel,” Kutuzov wrote about Maria Antonovna to his wife, “and that if I idolize women, it is only because she is of this sex; and if she were a man, then all women would be indifferent to me.”

“Aspasia is dearer than everyone

Black eyes with lights,

With your lush breasts...

She feels, sighs,

A tender soul is visible;

And she doesn’t know it herself

What’s better than everyone else,” -

old Derzhavin sang about her.

No one was surprised that Marya Antonovna’s husband, Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, had two positions: the open one - chief chamberlain and the secret one - “indulgent husband”, or, as jokers said, “grand master of the Masonic lodge of cuckolds.”

The virtuous Empress Maria Feodorovna wrote to the “virtuous wife” Maria Antonovna: “Your husband gives me pleasure, speaking about you with feelings of such love, which, I believe, few wives, like you, can boast of.”

The lover, however, was no less lenient than the husband. One day he took Marya Antonovna by surprise with his adjutant Ozharovsky. But she managed to convince the sovereign that nothing had happened, and he believed her more than his own eyes. But others followed, countless of her admirers, most of them young adjutants from the wing.

In July 1713, Maria Antonovna gave birth to a son, who was named Emmanuel. Unlike Western European kings, who officially recognized their children from favorites, took them to their palace to raise, then assigned them titles and provided them with palaces and lands, Alexander I, although and had no other direct heir, did not dare to do such an act. (Perhaps he was not completely sure that this was his son.) However, a month after the birth of his son, on August 30, 1713, he sent Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin a personally written rescript, which said: “Taking a sincere part in the well-being of your family, I, in accordance with your wishes, propose to make the following order: 1) all movable and immovable property that will remain after your death, to be divided between brother Emmanuel and his sisters, Marina and Sophia, on a legal basis; 2) thus, the estate that went to Emmanuel and Sofia should be assessed so that the amount due for it will be paid to your daughter Marina from my Office. Upon your upcoming need for money, you will receive 300 thousand rubles. This amount should in due course be deducted from the one above that is assigned in favor of Marina’s elder sister. If during my lifetime I could not lead to the completion of this decree, I entrust my heirs to fulfill with all their strength and with all accuracy this duty so close to my heart” (D. S. Merezhkovsky).

The text of this rescript does not give the impression of the spiritual breadth of the benefactor; it is permeated with the desire to shroud the charitable act in a secret accessible only to a few. It is clear from it that Emmanuel and Sophia are his children, and Marina, the daughter of Dmitry Lvovich Naryshkin, Alexander I not only did not support his son Emmanuel attention and care, but already in the next year, 1814, he stopped all relations with Maria Antonovna.

Let us remember that this was the period when Alexander I suffered the Patriotic War of 1812, and then the Foreign Campaign of 1813–1814 and the International Congress of Napoleon’s winners in 1814. During these two years, he was with the army almost all the time and rarely visited St. Petersburg.

In the world they said that Maria Antonovna Naryshkina “she herself broke the connection that she did not know how to appreciate.” We do not know whether this judgment was correct. One can only assume that a woman whose husband received such a rescript must experience not only shame, but also such deep disappointment in her lover that love was no longer out of the question.

Things were not going well for Alexander I with his direct heirs: two daughters born to Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna died in infancy. Alexander Pavlovich’s first daughter from Maria Antonovna also died. The second, Sophia, whom the emperor undoubtedly considered his own, survived, but from childhood she was predisposed to tuberculosis, or, as they said then, “she was weak in the chest.” Alexander loved Sofochka very much and constantly visited her, especially when she was sick. But Sophia, sick with consumption, despite all efforts to cure her, died very young, on the eve of her wedding.

In 1825, Alexander I, who broke with his favorite and reconciled with his wife, Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, died in Taganrog under mysterious circumstances and was buried (he or his double?) in the Peter and Paul Fortress. His brightest and longest-standing favorite-mistress Maria Antonovna Naryshkina from the family of princes Svyatopolk-Chetvertinsky died at the age of 75, much later than the emperor - on September 6, 1854.

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D. Dave. Portrait of Alexander I. S. Tonchi. Portrait of Maria Antonovna Naryshkina

Emperor Alexander I became famous not only for his military exploits - he is called one of the most loving Russian rulers. He had a beautiful wife who drove poets and courtiers crazy, and several favorites. His affair with Maria Naryshkina was the longest and most serious - they spent 15 years together, Maria gave birth to Alexander I three children. Some sources describe her as a modest, silent beauty, while others describe her as a self-confident and arrogant femme fatale. Who really was the most brilliant favorite of Alexander I?

V. Borovikovsky. Portrait of Alexander I

Alexander I was the grandson of Catherine II and the eldest son of Paul I. Catherine II was involved in raising the future emperor, and she chose a wife for him - Louise-Maria-Augusta of Baden, and after baptism in the Orthodox Church - Elizaveta Alekseevna. She was meek, delicate, impeccably brought up, and also very beautiful. But her virtues were appreciated by everyone except Alexander I.

I. Grassi. Portrait of Maria Antonovna Naryshkina, 1807

Maria Naryshkina was not the emperor’s first favorite, but many people call her the only strong passion of Alexander I. All his previous novels were short-lived, but this one lasted 15 years. How was Maria Naryshkina able to conquer the emperor?

D. Bossi. Maria Antonovna Naryshkina, 1808

Aspasia is dearer than everyone:
Black eyes with lights,
With his foamy chest
Amazing Athens
Surpasses everyone in appearance;
Eyes of an eagle, souls of a lion
It burns like the sun with beauty.

Emperor Alexander I

The English envoy F. Wigel wrote that “her beauty was so perfect that it seemed impossible, unnatural. The ideal features of her face and the impeccability of her figure stood out even more clearly with the ever-present simplicity of her outfit.” We cannot fully judge the beauty of the famous favorite - unfortunately, only a few portraits of Maria Antonovna have reached us.

P. E. Strolley. Maria Antonovna Naryshkina with a child, 1801

Portrait of Maria Antonovna Naryshkina. Unknown artist

D. Dave. Portrait of Alexander I. Fragment

Maria Naryshkina lived until she was 75 years old; according to some sources, there were many more love affairs in her life; according to others, she spent almost a year among the novices of the monastery. Obviously, the only thing that will remain indisputable for us is the fact of her rare beauty and the love of the emperor for her, in whose life she left a noticeable mark.