Charlotta Arfwedson

Charlotta Arfwedson (1776–1862) was a Swedish politically active countess and artist. She acted as the political adviser of her second spouse, count Carl Carlsson Mörner. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts (1793).

Charlotta Arfwedson was the daughter of the merchant Carl Kristoffer Arfwedson and Katarina Charlotta von Langenberg. Her brother, merchant Carl Abraham Arfwedson, was a personal friend of the Swedish queen, Désirée Clary, whom he had come to know when he was employed in her fathers firm in Marseille, and with whom she used to speak with of her memories of France after she became queen of Sweden.

Charlotta Arfwedson married colonel lieutenant baron Casper Wrede, whom she divorced, and second in 1810 to the politician count Carl Mörner, who served as Vice Roy of Norway. She was well known by her contemporaries to act as the political adviser of her spouse. He followed her advice, she wrote and edited his speeches and handled his correspondence with the French-born heir to the throne, Charles XIV John of Sweden, who could not speak Swedish, while Mörner could not speak French, while she could speak both languages. Queen Charlotte wrote of her influence in her famous journal: "She does influence his decisions to a large degree, and the acknowledgement must be made to her, that she does so excellently skillful and almost without anyone noticing it."