Simeon Solomon - In the Temple of Venus 1865

Throughout his life, Simeon Solomon regretted that he had never received a classical education, and consequently was not cognizant with Latin and Greek. But through his friendships with the poet Algernon Swinburne, the Eton schoolmaster Oscar Browning, and the Oxford don Walter Pater, the great critic of the Italian Renaissance, Solomon became deeply familiar with classical subjects. This watercolour may be related to a number of works he painted in the mid 1860s showing scenes of heterosexual, homosexual and lesbian love in ancient classical settings in Greece and Rome.