Elagabalus

Depicted here is a portrait of the eccentric and bizarre Roman Emperor Elagabalus. The portrait is based on a famous bust of the young emperor, who reigned for just four years before being murdered at age 18.
Most of the various images encircling the portrait of Elagabalus are segments from “The Roses of Heliogabalus” (1888) by the Victorian painter Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Heliogabalus is another name Elagabalus is known by).
These various images (as with the others - segments from other Tadema paintings as well as paintings from other artists) allude to the depraved, strange and hedonistic lifestyle of the young emperor.
The rose petals link to the supposed story of Elagabalus suffocating to death a number of banquet guest by having huge volumes of flowers dropped from the ceiling (although in the original Roman story they were not roses).

This work featured a great amount of intricate detail and many hours were spent achieving the tonal variations in the portrait as well as the various images encircling the portrait.

High quality Art spectrum oils used on triple-primed canvas.
The sides of the canvas are painted white.
Work is signed in bottom-right corner.
Ready to hang with strong wire/d-rings on the back.
Comes with a certificate of authenticity.

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Jeremy Elkington has been painting since 1995 and in 2002 achieved his Masters of Visual Arts (By Research) at Monash University. Since 1997 Jeremy has been exhibiting his work in group and solo exhibitions and regularly submitting his work in an array of art prizes across Australia. In 2009 he won 'Best Australian Landscape' at the Herald Sun Rotary Club of Camberwell Art Show and in both 2018 and 2022 was a semi-finalist in the Doug Moran Portrait Prize. At the core of much of Jeremy's artwork (especially in larger paintings) are desert landscapes, the ancient world (particularly Ancient Rome), ornament and abstraction. From 1997 to 2011 Arabic ornament and architectural elements (as well as the desert landscape) had been explored. Desert landscapes remain but Arabic art had been superseded by the armour, weaponry, ornament, architectural elements and sculpture of Ancient Rome. Within such works Jeremy aims to evoke a sense of the hidden narrative, the epic, the surreal, the ornamental, the archaic as well as beauty. Since 2013 Jeremy has also explored abstraction, abstract-expressionism, silhouettes, the Gothic, portraiture (particularly influenced by the work of Francis Bacon) space and depictions of film scenes. Jeremy has also been producing drawings whose range of subject matter reflects that within his paintings but, at times, has explored pattern and ornament to an intense degree.
Jeremy has sold artwork across Australia, New Zealand, UK and USA.