Maria Feodorovna ( Мария Фёдоровна ; 26 November 1847 – 13 October 1928), known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was Empress of Russia from 1881 to 1894 as the wife of Emperor Alexander III. She was the second daughter of Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Maria's eldest son became the last Russian monarch, Emperor Nicholas II. Maria lived for 10 years after Bolshevik functionaries murdered Nicholas and his immediate family in 1918.
Dagmar was known for her beauty. Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge said that Dagmar was "sweetly pretty" and commented favorably on her "splendid dark eyes." Her fiancee Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsesarevich of Russia was enthusiastic about her beauty. He wrote to his mother that "she is even prettier in real life than in the portraits that we had seen so far. Her eyes speak for her: they are so kind, intelligent, animated." When she was tsarevna, Thomas W. Knox met her at Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia's wedding and wrote favorably about her beauty compared to that of the bride, Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He wrote that Dagmar was "less inclined to stoutness than the bride, she does not display such a plumpness of shoulder, and her neck rises more swan-like and gives fuller play to her finely formed head, with its curly hair and Grecian outline of face." He also commented favorably on "her keen, clear, and flashing eyes."
Dagmar was intelligent. When considering Dagmar for her second son Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria judged that "Dagmar is cleverer [than her older sister, Alexandra]... she is a very nice girl." When she married, she didn't know how to speak any Russian. However, within a few years, she mastered the language and was so proficient that her husband wrote to her in Russian. She told an American minister to Russia that "the Russian language is full of power and beauty, it equals the Italian in music, the English in vigorous power and copiousness.