Charlotte von Hagn was a German actress of the Biedermeier

Biedermeier

In Central Europe, the Biedermeier era refers to the middle-class sensibilities of the historical period between 1815, the year of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and 1848, the year of the European revolutions...

-era.

Early life

Hagn was a daughter of the businessman Karl von Hagn and his wife Josepha Schwab. Her younger brother was the painter Ludwig von Hagn

Ludwig von Hagn

Ludwig von Hagn was a German painter and the younger brother of the actress Charlotte von Hagn....

.

Career

At her first appearance at the 1828 Munich Hoftheater, the audience applauded at once and she had huge successes at the Burgtheaters in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

, Berlin and Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

.

From 1838 to 1846 she belonged to the Berlin Hofbühne. She worked in St Petersburg, Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

 and other cities and seems to have been celebrated everywhere she went. Her talent for comedy was apparently based on her beauty and demeanour. She was described as a witty and charming conversationalist, and she competed with Karoline Bauer; the theatre audiences were divided into "Hagnerians" and "Bauerians". She was much less well-suited to tragic roles. Her witty impromptu asides gave her the nickname of "the German Déjazet".

Personal life

In the spring of 1848 she married the landowner Alexander von Oven and retired from the stage, but she was divorced in 1851. She had an affair with Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, who called her the concubine of two kings, and may have had an affair with Bavarian King Ludwig I

Ludwig I of Bavaria

Ludwig I was a German king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states.-Crown prince:...

. He commissioned a portrait of her from his court painter Joseph Karl Stieler

Joseph Karl Stieler

Joseph Karl Stieler was a German painter. Born in Mainz to a family of engravers and die-cutters, Stieler received some artistic training from his father, August Friedrich Stieler...

 in 1828 for his Gallery of Beauties

Gallery of Beauties

The Gallery of Beauties is a collection of 36 portraits of the most beautiful women from the nobility and middle classes of Munich, Germany, painted between 1827 and 1850 and gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in the south pavilion of his Nymphenburg Palace in Munich...

.

Death

After her divorce Charlotte Hagner lived for a time in Gotha

Gotha (town)

Gotha is a town in Thuringia, within the central core of Germany. It is the capital of the district of Gotha.- History :The town has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha . Its importance derives from having been chosen in...

, then in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, where she died in April 1891. She was buried as Charlotte von Oven in the Alter Südfriedhof

Alter Südfriedhof

The Alter Südfriedhof is a cemetery in Munich, Germany. It was founded by Duke Albrecht V as a plague cemetery in 1563 about half a kilometer south of the Sendlinger Gate between Thalkirchner and Pestalozzistraße.-History:...

in Munich. Her grave has been preserved.