Maria Alexeivna was a daughter of Admiral
Alexei Naumovich Senyavin (1722-1797) and Anna Elizabeth von Bradke (1733-1776). On 3 July 1776, aged five, she entered the
Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens. She graduated in 1779 and two years later, in December of 1781 she was granted the rank of
maid of honour. On 29 January 1783, Maria married chamberlain
Aleksandr Lvovich Naryshkin (1760-1826), later Chief Director of the
Imperial Theatres and
Marshal of Nobility. During the reigns of Catherine II,
Paul I and
Alexander I, they maintained high positions in the royal court. The couple led a luxurious, open lifestyle and were well known for their opulent balls and receptions. In her memoirs
Varvara Golovina wrote:"A large company would gather at Naryshkin's... The host's daughters would bustle about, coyly act; it was a real farce. Naryshkin's house was generally distinguished by the fact that it was visited daily by the most motley company. The host was pleased mainly by the large number of guests, even though they were a mixed lot."Her older sister,
Yekaterina Sinyavina was said to surpass her in beauty, though opinions of contemporaries differed on their moral qualities. Many envied and slandered the Naryshkins, such as
Rostopchin who described Maria and her husband as "people of false modesty and honesty, skillfully hiding their souls". Meanwhile
Vigel endowed Maria Alexeievna with "noble feelings, thrift, aristocratic pride and a tough disposition". She was no stranger to charity and was amongst the first to join the
Women's Patriotic Society in 1812. She was also an artist, fond of sculpture and creating busts, as well as
reliefs which she is said to have done with perfection. In general, her name does not appear in scandals of Russian society of that time, thought Catherine the Great teased her husband, that a certain Azikov was disputing his marital rights. Naryshkin, who loved to joke about himself, sang the
aria She is my passion (which was fashionable at the time) in front of the empress, replacing the word
passion with
woman whilst winking in Azikov's direction. , 1803
Count Vrontsov, her brother-in-law, wrote of Maria:"I like her very much, I think that my sister Maria Alekseevna has always been ideal in her behavior: an exemplary daughter, a good sister, a loving wife and a caring mother."On 29 May 1799, Maria Alexeievna was made a Dame of the
Order St. Catherine (Small Cross) and on 1 January 1808, she was made a
lady-in-waiting. Romours claimed that she wanted to be made a Dame of the Grand Cross, and that the failure to do this was the reason she persuaded her husband to go abroad. She and her husband were asked to accompany
Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna to the
Vienna Congress. After this, the couple spend several years abroad. They lived a luxurious life in
Florence where they had palazzos and a
villa outside the city. Maria Alexeievna died of
tuberculosis on 3 January 1823 in Saint Petersburg and was buried in the
Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Konstantin Bulgakov to his brother on the topic of her death:"Only here do they talk about Naryshkina... She said goodbye to all her family, gave instructions to her husband and son and touched them so much that they wept incessantly. She confessed and took communion and is completely at peace. Yesterday she began to fall into oblivion, and no one hoped that she would live through today. She is 62 years old, more than forty years since she was married. She gave all her diamonds to her granddaughters, Suvorova's daughters. There are more than a million worth of them." == Issue ==