The roses of Heliogabalus by Alma-Tadema (1888), oil on canvas.
The Roses of Heliogabalus is a famous painting of 1888 by the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, at present in private hands, and based on a probably invented episode in the life of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (204-222). Heliogabalus is portrayed attempting to smother his unsuspecting guests in rose-petals released from false ceiling panels. The canvas measures 52" by 84 1/8", which may, like ratios within the painting itself, be intended to encode the golden mean. (52" / 84 1/8" = 0.618127..., and the golden mean = 0.618033...)
Heliogabalus was the son of Sextus Varius Marcellus and Julia Soaemias Bassiana, niece of Julia Domna (the wife of Septimius Severus).
Heliogabalus was serving as hereditary high priest of the deity when his mother and grandmother used him as a figurehead against Macrinus, who had succeeded Caracalla.
The painting The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888), by the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.
The Roses of Heliogabalus is a famous painting of 1888 by the Anglo-Dutch academician Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, at present in private hands, and based on a probably invented episode in the life of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (204-222).
Heliogabalus is portrayed attempting to smother his unsuspecting guests in rose-petals released from false ceiling panels.
The canvas measures 52" by 84 1/8", which may, like ratios within the painting itself, be intended to encode the golden mean.
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