Allegorical Self-Portrait

Solomon studied with the Pre-Raphaelite painters Rossetti and Burne-Jones, who were influenced by Italian art of the 15th century. Solomon's friendship with the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne diverted his interests from Old Testament subject matter to quasi-erotic, ancient Greek themes. In 1873, the date of this work, Solomon was arrested for a homosexual solicitation, and became a social outcast. He was completely abandoned by Swinburne and his friends in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In this poignant self-portrait, Solomon recognizable by his mass of wavy hair, lowered eyelids, aquiline nose and sharp chin, represents himself as an androgynous, winged, figure clad only in a Greek chlamys, contemplating his tenuous future in a crystal ball beneath a starry sky. Appropriately, he clutches a branch of the plant Solomon's Seal in his left arm. In 1905, Solomon died of chronic alcoholism.