The painting depicts a scene from the German playwright Friedrich Schiller’s historical drama Don Carlos, Act V, scene ii, in which the Marquis is shot through an iron grating and killed while he is talking to Don Carlos. The men are wearing 16th-century costumes and the Marquis has a Maltese cross on his chest and cloak. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were married in February 1840 and during the early months of their married life the Prince was ‘much taken up with painting and began a picture of the death of Posa … making a sketch for it, which he did beautifully’, according to the Queen. About this time Sir George Hayter noted in his diary that he had made a sketch of the death of the Marquis of Posa for Prince Albert, so the outlines of the composition may have been his.