Simeon Solomon - Hooded Figure

1868
11 3/8” x 8 1/2” (29 x 21.5)

Simeon Solomon was seventeen years younger than his brother Abraham, a well-known genre painter. Simeon looked up to his brother, his first teacher, and followed his footsteps to the Royal Academy in 1856. However, he felt more akin to the Pre-Raphaelites, who in turn admired his delicate draftsmanship and embraced him as a friend. In 1871, when Solomon was indicted for a homosexual act, they deserted him, as did his family, and Solomon became destitute, dying of a heart attack in a poor house.

Recently, Solomon’s treatment of his Jewish heritage has been the focus of exhibitions in London (Jewish Museum, 2001) and Munich (along with Birmingham, 2006). In 1862, a series of ten drawings by Solomon, depicting Jewish Rituals, was published in London. They drew attention to contemporary Jewish life in London. Hitherto, Jewish subjects were usually treated in Orientalist settings. Solomon loved the costumes worn by modern people at religious ceremonies, and he depicted them in Catholic, Orthodox, and Coptic rituals. A Coptic Procession of 1865 features a woman wearing a head-scarf as in the present drawing of 1868. The intensive gaze of the figure in the present drawing might be interpreted as expression of religious rapture.

The Portrait of a Boy in Profile (cat. no. 2) seems to be an earlier work of the artist, displaying a sensitive hand, following the discipline of the Academy and the influence of the German Nazarenes on English draftsmanship. The drawing of 1885 of A Woman’s Head in Profile (cat. no. 3), executed after Solomon had fallen on hard times, is, ironically, of a more ethereal mood. Compositions such as this one, with large idealized heads, dominate Solomon’s later work.

References
From Prodigy to Outcast: Simeon Solomon - Pre- Raphaelite Artist, London 2001, p. 18 ill. of Coptic Baptismal (hooded figure

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