Maria Ferdinanda was born to Maximilian, Crown Prince of Saxony and his first wife Princess Caroline of Parma on 27 April 1796.

As her mother died in 1804, her father remarried in 1825 to Princess Maria Luisa Carlota of Parma, but this marriage would produce no new siblings.

Maria Ferdinanda caught the eye of Leopold's elderly father Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The royal family left the Palazzo Pitti in Florence for the Austrian court of Emperor Francis Joseph and Empress Elisabeth in Vienna.

Maria Ferdinanda lived mainly from then on in Schlackenwerth, but was often a guest of her brother King John of Saxony in Dresden.

Maria Ferdinanda remained a widow for forty-one years, finally dying on 3 January 1865.