TOP 5 most beautiful women of the 19th century

Every year, beauty standards change, and it is more and more difficult to keep up with new trends. A couple of years ago, bright lips, unusual shadows, careless eyeliner, and, most importantly, more highlighter or glitter were in trend. Now it would be called bad taste, since naturalness has become popular.

Consider which women were considered the standard of beauty more than 200 years ago. However, they still do not cease to be the object of admiration of thousands of people – it is impossible to remain indifferent to their sophisticated facial features and graceful curves of the figure.

Matilda Kshesinskaya

Kshesinskaya is an outstanding ballerina and one of the most influential persons of the late 19th century. She played leading roles in the most popular theaters and regularly turned down invitations to foreign ballerinas, wanting to prove that Russian dancers are not worse than others.

The beauty of the girl was noted by everyone: for example, at the graduation party of the Imperial Theater School, which Matilda brilliantly graduated from, the royal family was present. The entire banquet Alexander III admired the girl, after which he uttered winged and fateful words: “Mademoiselle! Be the decoration and glory of our ballet! “

The dancer’s personal life is shrouded in secrets: it is believed that for two years she was the mistress of Nikolai Alexandrovich and even received from him a mansion on the English Embankment.

“I fell in love with the Heir from our first meeting. After the summer season in Krasnoe Selo, when I could meet and talk with him, my feeling filled my whole soul, and I could only think about him … “, wrote Kshesinskaya in her diary.

But the passionate romance was destroyed by the engagement of Nicholas with the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. However, Matilda did not cease to play a significant role in the royal family, because she was in close relations with the Grand Dukes Sergei Mikhailovich and Andrei Vladimirovich. Later, by the Highest decree, her son received a patronymic “Sergeevich”.

Ten years after the birth of the heir, the girl entered into a morganatic marriage with the Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich – he adopted the boy and gave him his patronymic. And it is clearly not without reason that, five years later, the cousin of Nicholas II conferred on her and her descendants the title and surname of the Most Serene Princes of the Romanovsky-Krasinsky.

Stephanie Radziwill

Stephanie is an incredible mystery woman who has broken many hearts. One of her most important admirers was Count Yusupov, who once covered the girl’s room with roses while she was away. The young man left a note asking for permission “Bring your heart and everything he has to her feet”… But Radziwill only thanked her boyfriend, giving a mild refusal.

The “crooked prince Lvov”, the son of General Dmitry Semyonovich, also wooed her. Not getting the heart of his beloved, he “fell into consumption” and soon died.

What can I say, if even Pushkin admired the princess – it is believed that the genius wrote his work “The Page, or the Fifteenth Year” just about her, right after he danced with the girl at the ball. In the poem, the playwright calls her a goddess, “the Warsaw Countess” and marvels at her beauty and insight. And the poet Ivan Kozlov in his works called Radzill “A beauty with an infant soul, a participant in other people’s troubles.”

But, despite all the efforts of the fans, only Count Wittgenstein was able to win the heart of the impregnable Mademoiselle and celebrate with her a magnificent wedding, about which there were legends. At their celebration, the great composer Count Veleursky was best man, and all the people from the imperial house and the maids of honor were dressed in white. The newlyweds themselves traveled to “A blue, upholstered with yellow cloth, four-seater carriage.”

Emilia Musina-Pushkina

Emilia is a famous muse of creative people. In St. Petersburg, the Countess and her sister Aurora were called “Finnish stars”. “All the luminaries turned pale before them”, – wrote contemporaries about girls. And the noblewoman Alexandra Smirnova once noted that “In St. Petersburg, her blond hair, her blue eyes and black eyebrows made a splash.”

Even Mikhail Lermontov went to the girl’s fans – he regularly visited Stephanie’s house and presented her with gifts. “He was passionately in love with Countess Musina-Pushkina and followed her everywhere like a shadow.”– wrote Sollogub.

By the way, the first meeting between Turgenev and Mikhail took place next to the beauty:

“He sat on a low stool in front of the sofa, on which, dressed in a black dress, sat one of the then metropolitan beauties – the blonde Countess M.-P. – died early, really lovely creature. Lermontov was wearing the uniform of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment; he did not take off his saber or gloves and, hunched over and frowning, glanced gloomily at the Countess, “the publicist wrote about that day.

But Emilia’s heart was taken: she, while still a girl, fell in love with Musin-Pushkin. Then he was poor and was considered a “state criminal”, but in marriage, not without the support of his wife, he unexpectedly achieved heights and became a count and heir to a wealthy aristocratic family.

The girl became famous not only for her incredible beauty, but also for her kind soul. But philanthropy played a cruel joke with the countess. When, at the height of the typhus epidemic, the girl helped the sick peasants and visited them, she became infected herself, which is why she died at the age of 36.

Natalia Goncharova

Disputes about the personality of Goncharova do not stop until now: someone considers her an insidious traitor, others – the noble muse of the great poet.

Natasha met Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin at the ball. The girl was then only 16 years old, and her future husband recently turned 30. Very soon, amazed by the beauty and manners of the girl, Pushkin came to ask the Goncharovs for the hand of their daughter. But he was able to obtain permission from Natalia’s mother for marriage only after a few months.

Thanks to her amazing ability to keep herself in society, the girl quickly settled in Tsarskoe Selo, where she moved with her husband after the wedding, and was always the main guest at social events.

There was no end to the fans: it was even said that Emperor Nicholas I himself was in love with Natalia. But Alexander, known as a terrible jealous man, trusted the chosen one and was even more proud of her popularity. However, she also gave no reason to doubt her loyalty.

Harmony from the family disappeared in 1935, when Goncharova met Georges Dantes, and he began demonstratively courting the girl. Here, in the Pushkin family, disagreements began, in the end, leading to the death of the poet.

The fact is that a year after the fatal acquaintance, all the friends of the prose writer received letters with insults to Natalia and Alexander. Pushkin was sure that it was written by Georges, and challenged him to a duel. But it did not take place, and Dantes wooed Natalia’s sister.

However, two months later, Dantes had already publicly insulted Natasha at the ball. Pushkin, being ready to break anyone for his wife, wrote a harsh letter to Gekkern. The duel, which ended with the fatal wound of the poet, could no longer be avoided.

Natalia was 25, and she had already become a widow with four children. Only seven years later, she remarried, this time to Lieutenant General Pyotr Lansky. From him, the girl gave birth to three more girls.

Varvara Rimskaya-Korsakova (Mergasova)

Varvara Dmitrievna was a real star of the high society in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She was called “Venus from Tartarus”, and many even put her neat features and ruddy cheeks above the beauty of the French Empress Eugenia, which greatly outraged the wife of Napoleon III, known to everyone as the trendsetter of all Europe.

Barbara was insolent and possessed a sharp wit. The girl did not hesitate to show her legs, which were called “the most beautiful in Europe”, or to wear bold outfits, perhaps as a protest to the strict standards of artsy fashion. Because of this, the girl constantly became the culprit of high-profile scandals – for example, at one of the balls she was asked to leave because of an overly transparent dress.

At the age of 16, Mergasova married Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a poet, composer, hussar and friend of Alexander Pushkin. After only one dance, the enviable groom could not take his eyes off the chosen one and almost instantly proposed to her. In marriage, the lovers had three sons. People noted that with motherhood and childbirth, the girl did not waste her beauty, on the contrary, she became more and more beautiful every year.

After parting with her husband, the famous beauty moved to Nice, where she also became an object of admiration. Prince Obolensky noted that the girl was considered a European beauty and overshadowed all noble ladies with her attractiveness. Subsequently, Varya became the prototype for one of the heroines of Lev Tolstov’s “Anna Karenina”.

Twice the girl was written by Franz Winterhalter, and, according to rumors, he himself was in love with his model. However, the girl already had a whole crowd of fans, but she rejected each and only laughed:

“My husband is handsome, smart, wonderful, much better than you … “.