Ekaterina Pavlovna, favourite sister of Alexander I

Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna

EKATERINA PAVLOVNA 1788-1819
by LEVITSKI:    1817:    

I suppose this is the right place to start a thread about the grand duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, daughter of Paul I and his tsarina Maria Feodorovna.

I think she had a great beauty. If I´m not wrong, around 1808, the famous general Peter Bagration was madly in love with Ekaterina. It was not a fair situation, because Peter Bagration was married since 1800 with another Ekaterina, born Savronskaia. Ekaterina Savronskaia Bagration, a laidy in waiting of the tsarina Maria, was not happy when tsar Paul forced her to marry Peter; so, shortly after the marriage, she ran away, moving from Vienne, where she became the mistress of Klemens Metternich...

When Peter Bagration fell in love with grand duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, she was bethroted to Georges of Oldenburg. Was this marriage a happy one? Don´t know. But Georges of Oldenburg died, I believe due a tiphoyd fever, during the napoleonic last years. The widow Ekaterina, now Katherine, was in Vienna at the Congress. It´s funny, but the wife of Bagration, at this time widow of Bagration, Ekaterina, was also at the Congress. Well, I know that a the Congress, it was decided to marry again the duchess of Oldenburg. The first candidate was archduke Charles of Austria, but, at the end, the choosen one was the crown prince, later king, of Wurttemberg...

Do you know more about this captivating story? And portraits of Ekaterina?

Thanks!

This rectangular lacquer box displays a modern portrait of GDss Ekaterina Pavlovna, daughter of Paul I. She was married two times & had four children. Her last daughter, Sophie, born in 1818, would become the Queen of Netherlands.

The box was painted by modern St Petersburg artist N.Kazakov. It looks like it was based on the Levitsky portrait.

Here's a link to a page where Lisa posted many great portraits of her:

http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php/topic,5598.75.html

Thanks, Ella!

She was beautiful! I like her beautiful eyes and the gentle face. So, my interest focused on her is increasing!

Anyone knows little or great stories about this grand duchess??

That's a very pretty box...

Ekaterina was the most beautiful daughter of Paul and Marie.  She was a glamourous and bold society lady.  Napoleon once wanted to marry her to draw the Russians to his side but Ekaterina's family was unwilling to sacrifice her esp since she was Alexander I's favorite sister.  However, Alexander's wife, Elisabeth noted that due to Ekaterina's character, she would probably have become a great French empress.  While the French were negotiating with the Russians, Ekaterina chose to marry George of Oldenburg instead, which was a relieve to the family but also rather shocking because George was not handsome.  Ekaterina liked him enough and was very sad when her husband died so young due to typhoid fever. 

I have completed a personal project of the Grand Duchesses of Russia. GD Katarina  Pavlovna 1788 1819.following references for photos.
http://worldroots.com/brigitte/art/kathpavlovna1788.jpg
http://www.royaltyguide.nl/images-families/romanov/romanov2/1788%20Catherine-02.JPG
If you follow a royalty guide, there is a picture of her burial in stuttgart. Willem's name is beside hers, on the marble mausoleum.
I do no know how to give credit for these sites, so please take my thanks in lieu.

Willem of Wurttemberg  established in 1817, a royal stud of Arabian horses in Weil.

I have recently obtained a copy of the ERHJ book on Grand Duchess, published by Arturo Beeche, and it seems she was the favourite sister of Alex. I. She went with him on various travels[London to meet the Prince Regent, 1814-  also the  Congress of Vienna.]
They wrote to each other, she giving political advise.  She was arrogant and made trouble. Her behavour in London is an example,
she asked The Prince Regent to stop playing God save the King anthem as it made her sick.  This  soured relations  between Britain and Russia for years to come.
She died age 30 in 1819of erysipelas complicated by pneumonia.

Signed HRH

I don't know much about the era of Alexander I but W. Bruce Lincoln had this to write about Ekaterina:

"During the years immediately after Alexander signed the peace at Tilsit, there was rising discontent in Russia, but it was far less the result of the Tsar's limited reforms than of his stubborn participation in Napoleon's Continental System. Britain's blockade of Russia's port prevented the nobility from exporting the products their serfs produced and caused them to suffer serious economic losses. Their discontent reached a peak early in 1812, and one of its most vocal centers was the Court the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna maintained at her provincial estate in Tver. There she assembled those nobles who criticized her brother and encouraged the historian and belletrist Nikolai Karamzin to write his famous Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, which he urged the emperor to return to the policies of his grandmother.

That Ekaterina Pavlovna allowed her court to become a center of opposition must have pained Alexander extremely. She was an energetic, vivacious woman, short and petite, with ringlets of closely cropped, tightly curled chestnut hair, framing her camoelike face. She drew men to her with irrisistible charm, and they took delight in doing her bidding. She claimed the hearts of many in Russia, but her greatest conquest was het brother himself. She was Alexander's favorite sister, one of the great feminine influences of his life. Indeed, his intense passion, expressed in such phrases as "I am yours, heart and soul, for life," "I think that I love you more with each day that passes," and "to love you more than I do is impossible," add yet another element of mystery to his already complex character. Ekaterina Pavlovna's letters to her brother expressed no such yearnings, but she was indeed a scheming woman with a burning interest in politics, who missed no opportunity to influence state policy. Certainly she was an important leader in the opposition against the commoner Speranskii."
W. Bruce Lincoln, The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias, p. 392-393

I think she died fairly young, was it in childbirth or what? What was her second marriage? I have read about her, and I can't really get much sense of her personality, enough to interpret it for myself, but I think she was interesting enough.She most likely loved her brother as well, but that book quote that someone posted perhaps shows she knew that since Alexander was Czar, he was the one you wanted as a favorite brother, i you were interested in politics.She would have been an interesting wife for Napoleon, but he might have liked her, as she would have been more like Josephine than like his second wife, the docile Marie- Louise of Austria.

About her second marriage, imperial_angel...

As far as I know, Ekaterina fell madly in love with William when they met each other in a ball while they were in England. Ekaterina was a young widow, and at these times it was pretty sure she has to marry again archduke Karl of Austria, brother of emperor Franz. Remember that Alexandra, elder sister of Ekaterina, had been the first wife of archduque Joseph of Austria, but she was dead too young in childbirth. So, the family ties between Romanovs and Habsburgs were broken, and a lot of influencial people wished to make a new alliance by marriying Ekaterina with Karl.
But Ekaterina fell in love with William, who was married to a gentle bavarian princess, Karoline Augusta. William divorced Karoline to marry Ekaterina.

It sounds like her second marriage was something of a scandal then, because divorce usually was with royalty back then. Is that true?

It sounds like her second marriage was something of a scandal then, because divorce usually was with royalty back then. Is that true?

Yes, in some ways, it was a scandal. Think about it: the austrian and russian diplomats were sure about a marriage between archduke Karl and Ekaterina. Ekaterina was clearly delighted with a marriage with the brother of the austrian emperor, Karl, an epiletic man but also a great commander and respected reformer of the austrian army. But, at the summer in England, Ekaterina lost her heart and her head for William of Württemberg. And William was not a single, he was the husband of Karoline Augusta of Bavaria from june 1808.

It must have been humilliating for poor Karoline Augusta and, for sure, all the bavarian royal family shared her feeling. I have read somewhere that the elder brother of Karoline, crownprince Ludwig, later king Ludwig I, was furious. And the step mother of Karoline Augusta, queen Karoline, born Karoline of Baden, by the way sister of the tsarina Elizaveta Alexeievna, was really shocked. During the Congress of Vienna, crownprince Ludwig of Bavaria and crownprince William of Württemberg, until right now brothers-in-law, had more than a few words in a great ball. King Maximilian of Bavaria, father of poor Karoline and Ludwig, quickly sent the great commander Philip von Wrede to arrange the situation.

Well,Alexander I had many sisters...do you know who was his favorite sister and why?

His favourite sister was Olga, Queen of Württemberg.

You mean Ekaterina Pavlovna I think. She was firstly married to Prince of Oldenbourg, and secondly to King of Württemberg.