Abraham Solomon (1823-1862): A Brief Biography
By Carolyn Conroy
Abraham Solomon was born on 7 May 1823 at Sandy’s Street, Bishopsgate Without, in the East of London. He was the second son and third child of successful Jewish merchant Michael (Myer) Solomon and his wife Catherine, and elder brother to artists Rebecca and Simeon. Abraham attended the preparatory Bloomsbury art schools Sass’s and Carey’s at the age of thirteen and at the age of fifteen was recommended for admission to the Royal Academy Schools by Henry Sass. In December 1839 Abraham was awarded a silver medal for the “next best drawing from the Antique”[1] and similarly in 1843 a silver medal for the best drawing from life.[2] Abraham began exhibiting pictures at the age of sixteen; his first being Rabbi Expounding the Scriptures which was shown in March 1840 at the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. In the same year Abraham exhibited three other works at the Liverpool Academy, one of which was a portrait of the Reverend David M. Isaacs, a preacher at the Seel Street Synagogue in Liverpool. Over the next couple of years the young artist continued to exhibit at the Liverpool Academy and the Society of British Artists, but his first venture into Royal Academy exhibitions occurred in May 1841 with two paintings titled My Grandmother and a scene from Sir Walter Scott’s Fair Maid of Perth.
One of Abraham’s earliest commissions was a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, painted when he was around twenty years of age. The portrait is a copy of a daguerreotype of the Duke of Wellington by Antoine Claudet and both the painting and the daguerreotype were then lent to Henry Thomas Ryall, who used them to make a steel engraving. For more on the recent attribution of this painting to Abraham and the story behind the discovery, see Roberto Ferrari’s recent report on the site here.
By 1846 Abraham had left the family home at Sandy’s St and moved his studio firstly to Percy St, then Howland St, then Upper Charlotte St and ultimately around 1857 to 18 Gower St, his final home which he also shared with sister Rebecca. Abraham became a regular contributor to Royal Academy exhibitions, producing fashionable genre paintings of literary and popular subjects, such as Scene from the Vicar of Wakefield (1842), Peveril of the Peak (1845), The Breakfast Table (1846) A Ballroom in the Year 1760 (1848) and Academy for the Institution in the Discipline of the Fan 1711 (1849). In addition to his success at the exhibitions, many of Abraham’s paintings were reproduced as engravings for the Illustrated London News from the late 1840s. The artist’s success went from strength to strength and he produced some of his most successful paintings in the 1850s and early 1860s. Of these can be listed, First Class - the meeting..."And at first meeting loved" and Second Class -the parting / "Thus part we rich in sorrow parting poor" exhibited at the RA in 1854 (and of which various other reproductions and versions were created); Waiting for the Verdict (1857) and its companion painting Not Guilty (the Acquittal) (1859); The Lion in Love (1858); Art Critics in Brittany (1860), and La Malade Imaginaire (1860).
In May 1860, Abraham married Ella Hart, the sister of medical journalist Ernest Abraham Hart, and spent time touring the Pyranees, producing at least six pictures “painted from nature” according to the Athenaeum.[3] In 1861 he joined the Artists Rifles (38th Middlesex) with younger brother Simeon, but by the autumn of 1862 after suffering from ill health caused by heart problems, Abraham journeyed to Biarritz in the south of France to paint and recuperate. His last picture, The Departure of a Diligence, Biarritz was painted here during this time. On 19 December, at the age of thirty-nine, he died suddenly, according to the Athenaeum from inflammation of both lungs.[4] Below is the last letter that Abraham sent to his family on 10 November, from Biarritz, a month before he died, and re-printed in the Athenaeum:
One of Abraham’s earliest commissions was a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, painted when he was around twenty years of age. The portrait is a copy of a daguerreotype of the Duke of Wellington by Antoine Claudet and both the painting and the daguerreotype were then lent to Henry Thomas Ryall, who used them to make a steel engraving. For more on the recent attribution of this painting to Abraham and the story behind the discovery, see Roberto Ferrari’s recent report on the site here.
By 1846 Abraham had left the family home at Sandy’s St and moved his studio firstly to Percy St, then Howland St, then Upper Charlotte St and ultimately around 1857 to 18 Gower St, his final home which he also shared with sister Rebecca. Abraham became a regular contributor to Royal Academy exhibitions, producing fashionable genre paintings of literary and popular subjects, such as Scene from the Vicar of Wakefield (1842), Peveril of the Peak (1845), The Breakfast Table (1846) A Ballroom in the Year 1760 (1848) and Academy for the Institution in the Discipline of the Fan 1711 (1849). In addition to his success at the exhibitions, many of Abraham’s paintings were reproduced as engravings for the Illustrated London News from the late 1840s. The artist’s success went from strength to strength and he produced some of his most successful paintings in the 1850s and early 1860s. Of these can be listed, First Class - the meeting..."And at first meeting loved" and Second Class -the parting / "Thus part we rich in sorrow parting poor" exhibited at the RA in 1854 (and of which various other reproductions and versions were created); Waiting for the Verdict (1857) and its companion painting Not Guilty (the Acquittal) (1859); The Lion in Love (1858); Art Critics in Brittany (1860), and La Malade Imaginaire (1860).
In May 1860, Abraham married Ella Hart, the sister of medical journalist Ernest Abraham Hart, and spent time touring the Pyranees, producing at least six pictures “painted from nature” according to the Athenaeum.[3] In 1861 he joined the Artists Rifles (38th Middlesex) with younger brother Simeon, but by the autumn of 1862 after suffering from ill health caused by heart problems, Abraham journeyed to Biarritz in the south of France to paint and recuperate. His last picture, The Departure of a Diligence, Biarritz was painted here during this time. On 19 December, at the age of thirty-nine, he died suddenly, according to the Athenaeum from inflammation of both lungs.[4] Below is the last letter that Abraham sent to his family on 10 November, from Biarritz, a month before he died, and re-printed in the Athenaeum:
"All, indeed, I look for is the picturesque, as I trust a large picture I am painting here may in some way testify. It will take me some time, as there are a great number of figures in it; and a we have only been settled here three weeks, it is not as yet more than commenced. The weather is so lovely (bright and sunny as possible, almost summer), that I hope it is likely I may make more way with my work than in London just now, in the midst of November fogs. I am wonderfully better, but still not quite well. I was so unwell on my return from Ilfracombe, that even with the advice I have respecting diet, &c. (which, I believe, is the principal), I can hardly expect to be quite rid of what you heard me complain of, and which, from my usually robust exterior, I fancy hardly called, or, indeed, could call forth the sympathy I craved for. I shall be only too glad to be quite well and say no more about it. We are capitally housed, right on the sea, which is splendid here always,--earlier in the season, particularly, when one sees, as I hear, four to five hundred fair bathers inducted into the briny ocean something in the manner my sketches attemped to delineate. I also send another sketch of 'How they teach the young idea,' not to shoot, but to walk. The construction is simple, and certainly not dangerous. The last sketch is the recollection of the only swell left here; I think her rather fine, and the costume might be imitated with advantage. The news here is not, as your may believe, plentiful. All the houses are 'a louer,' which scarcely looks cheerful; but as our art is all-interesting, it hardly affects us. With some wonderful weather, it is astonishing that the season should be over so soon. My wife finds no want of employment looking after me, obstinate as I am; wanting to work ten hours a day, when she will only let me do so half as much. Although the costume here is not specially remarkable, there is a great deal most suggestive, from which I trust to glean some little. The girls are very pretty, and most useful for my style of art,-- very Spanish, which in my large picture I have to avoid. It must be essentially French; but I hope to use that characteristic in some smaller work." A. Solomon
Abraham was buried at the burial ground of the Margaret Street Synagogue at Ball’s Pond Road Cemetery in London on 7 January 1863. In attendance was the Rev. Professor Marks, Abraham's family and numerous friends.
In an obituary to the artist published on 16 January 1863 the Jewish Chronicle wrote:
A personal friend of the deceased has favoured us with the following sketch of the character of the late Abraham Solomon:- The personal character of this accomplished man was in every respect admirable. He was a patter of manly virtues and simple worth. Rarely have talents so remarkable been associated with modesty so unaffected and sincere. His cheerful habit of thought, his delicate consideration for the feelings of others, his genuine kindness of heart; which shone through every feature, and made itself heard in every tone of his voice; his honesty of speech and character, were so many links in the chain which bound to him a very wide circle of friends and associates in the tie of close and friendly esteem. Those who knew him valued and loved the man not less than they admired the artist. Often such language is held in the exaggerated eulogy of one who is lose; but these are the words which all employed who spoke of Abraham Solomon during his life; these are words which will find a loud echo in the hearts of all who knew him; and there are none but will feel that this expresses the character of a man who was an honour to the family from which he sprung, to the faith to which he sincerely and devoutly adhered, and to the art which he cultivated with such success.
Note
Despite later suggestions that he was made an ARA (Associate of the Royal Academy) upon his death, this detail of Abraham's life is untrue. Abraham was nominated on the 30 July 1861, but his nomination did not get past the first round after only receiving one vote - Information provided by archivists at the RA archive.
[1] "Abraham Solomon." Athenaeum, no. 1836 (3 Jan 1863): 20.
[2] "Royal Academy of Arts," The Morning Chronicle, (12 Dec 1843).
[3] "Fine Art Gossip," Athenaeum, no. 1734 (Jan 1861): 89.
[4] "Abraham Solomon," Athenaeum, no. 1836 (1863): 20.
Despite later suggestions that he was made an ARA (Associate of the Royal Academy) upon his death, this detail of Abraham's life is untrue. Abraham was nominated on the 30 July 1861, but his nomination did not get past the first round after only receiving one vote - Information provided by archivists at the RA archive.
[1] "Abraham Solomon." Athenaeum, no. 1836 (3 Jan 1863): 20.
[2] "Royal Academy of Arts," The Morning Chronicle, (12 Dec 1843).
[3] "Fine Art Gossip," Athenaeum, no. 1734 (Jan 1861): 89.
[4] "Abraham Solomon," Athenaeum, no. 1836 (1863): 20.