His most famous work is The Chariot Race (now at the Manchester Art Gallery),[5] which he painted for the Vienna Exposition (1873) and then expanded to a larger size for the Columbian Exposition (Chicago Fair) of 1893.[6] The painting depicts the close of a chariot race in the Circus Maximus in Ancient Rome, presided over by Emperor Domitian. Chariot Race was completed in 1882 just two years after the publication of Ben-Hur. The painting depicts the loss of a wheel of a chariot at the height of the race. In the original book the wheel is "crushed", in the painting it is shown intact spinning off to the left.
In the painting After the Hunt (1864) Wagner portrayed his wife Bertha von Oldenburg in the circle of an elegant company of hunters, dressed in the historical costumes from the period of Mathias Corvinus. Another famous work was a round panorama of old Rome, titled Das alte Rom mit dem Triumphzuge Kaiser Constantin’s im Jahre 312 n.Chr., which he painted in cooperation with Josef Bühlmann in Munich in 1888. The painting was destroyed, and repainted by Yadegar Asisi in the Leipzig Panometer.[7]
.jpg){kind=link}
