The artist's portrayal of the Emperor seems hardly likely the subject was only 18 at the time of his murder. It is currently owned by the Spanish-Mexican billionaire businessman and art collector Juan Antonio Pérez Simón. The painting was sold once again, in 1993, by American collector Frederick Koch at Christie's in London, where it fetched £1,500,000. In 1973, after Funt experienced financial difficulties, he sold the painting along with the rest of his collection at Sotheby's, achieving a price of £28,000.
It failed to sell at Christie's in 1960, though eventually it was acquired by Allen Funt, the producer of Candid Camera, and a collector of Alma-Tadema's at a time when the artist remained very unfashionable. Following the death of the 2nd Baronet in 1934, the painting was sold by his son, the 3rd Baronet, in 1935 for £483. Alma-Tadema died the following year and his reputation declined markedly in the decades after his death. Aird died in 1911, and the painting was inherited by his son Sir John Richard Aird, 2nd Baronet. The finished work was exhibited at the Royal Academy that same year. As roses were out of season in Britain at the time, Alma-Tadema is reputed to have had rose petals sent from the south of France each week during the four months it took to complete the work. The painting was commissioned by Sir John Aird, 1st Baronet for £4,000 in 1888. Suetonius noted that another completely disreputable emperor, Nero, threw exactly the same sort of banquet, and Petronius described a similar ceiling in the house of Trimalchio in his Satyricon. Smothered to death, being unable to crawl out to the top. Guests in violets and other flowers, so that some were actually In a banqueting-room with a reversible ceiling he once buried his Parasitos suos violis et floribus, sic ut animam aliqui efflaverint, Unsuspecting guests being suffocated by rose petals. Although the Latin refers to "violetsĪnd other flowers", Alma-Tadema depicts the Emperor's The painting depicts a (most likely invented) episode takenįrom the Historia Augusta.
The figures are shown in varying degrees of cognizance, from obliviousness to terror to resignation. Pink rose petals falling from a false ceiling. The real drama, of course, is happening below, as the less favored guests are literally being smothered by deep drifts of
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