Hans Makart: Portrait of Charlotte Wolter as Messalina (1875)

(Historisch Museum der Stadt, Vienna, Austria)

A painting by the Austrian artist Hans Makart (1840 – 1884). The portrait shows the Austrian actress Charlotte Wolter (1834 - 1897). She is depicted in her role as Valeria Messalina (A.D. 17/20–48), the third wife of Roman emperor Claudius, in Adolf Wilbrandt's tragedy, Arria und Messalina. Empress Messalina has suffered greatly in art and literature and has a reputation as a femme fatale, ruthless, predatory and sexually insatiable with her husband emperor Claudius depicted as easily led by her and unconscious of her many adulteries. In A.D. 48 Messalina took the Roman senator Gaius Silius (c. AD 13 – 48) as a lover and forced him to marry her while Claudius was away. After the discovery of the marriage, Messalina and Gaius Silius were executed on the orders of emperor Claudius. Painting from 1875.