Dmitri Mendeleev fell in love with the young artist Anna Popova in his adulthood (he was over forty, and she was about 17-19).
For the sake of this union, the scientist divorced his first wife and they married in April 1882 in Kronstadt.
The marriage gave birth to four children - Lyubov (who became the wife of the poet Alexander Block), Ivan and the twins Vasily and Maria.
Anna Ivanovna studied at the Stroganov School and the Imperial Academy of Arts, and was a model for Ivan Kramskoy's painting "Moonlight Night" (1880).
After her husband's death, she wrote her memoirs "Mendeleev to Life" (1928) and actively participated in the creation and preservation of the historical cabinet of D. J. Mendeleev.