Portrait of Empress Maria Alexandrovna
1866
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Location in museum
The St Michael’s Castle
Open the panorama of the hall in the virtual tour
Room 230. The Raphael Gallery - Period Late 19th century
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Maria Alexandrovna (1824–1880) née Maximiliane Wilhelmine Auguste Sophie Marie, was the out-of-wedlock daughter of Wilhelmine of Baden. Wilhelmine’s husband, Ludwig II, the Grand Duke of Hesse, officially recognised Maria and her brother as his children in order to avoid a scandal. The Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolayevich, while travelling through Western Europe (1838–1839), gave his heart to Maria as his consort for life, despite the objections of his parents, who knew the secret of her birth. She came to Russia in the summer of 1840; on 16 April 1841, they were married. After the death of the Dowager Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (1860), Maria Alexandrovna headed the Mariinsky gymnasiums and educational institutions, and dedicated her life to charity and to the cause of women’s education. By her initiative, women’s gymnasium for all classes and the Red Cross were established, and military hospitals and numerous shelters, hospices and hostels were founded. Several cities were named in honour of the wife of Alexander II: Mariisnky Posad (1856, known earlier as the village of Sundyr, Chuvash Republic), Mariinsk (1857, known earlier as the village of Kiyskoye, Kemerovo) and Mariehamn (founded in 1861, Finland). Her later years were marred by tuberculosis and the fact that her husband had started a second family with the Princess Catherine Dolgorukova, who lived with her children by Alexander in the Winter Palace. A month after the death of Maria Alexandrovna, the emperor married Dolgorukova.