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Strathmann's most famous picture is Salammbô, representing the fictional title character of a historical novel by Gustave Flaubert. Lovis Corinth wrote of the painting in 1903: "Soon, however, the model was sent home, and Strathmann gradually covered his Salammbô's nakedness with more and more rugs and fantastical garments of his own invention, so that by the end only a mystical profile and the fingers of one hand peeped out from amongst a profusion of ornamental fabrics."
Flaubert's novel is set in Carthage immediately before and during the Mercenary Revolt (241-237 B.C.). It was enormously popular when first published and jumpstarted a renewed interest in the history of the Roman Republic's conflict with the North African Phoenician colony of Carthage.
Salammbô is a priestess and the daughter of the foremost Carthaginian general. She is the object of the obsessive lust of Matho, a leader of the mercenaries. Matho steals the sacred veil of Carthage, the Zaïmph, prompting Salammbô to enter the mercenaries' camp in an attempt to steal it back. The Zaïmph is an ornate bejewelled veil, the city's guardian, and touching it will bring death to the perpetrator.
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