Solomon, Abraham:

By: Joseph Jacobs , Goodman Lipkind

English artist; born in London May, 1824; died at Biarritz in 1862. At the age of eighteen he was admitted as a student to the school of the Royal Academy, where he gained a medal for drawing from the antique. From 1843 to the year of his death he was a regular contributor to the annual exhibition of the academy, and occasionally to the gallery of the British Institution. His first picture was a scene from Crabbe's poems, "The Courtship of Ditchem"; but the picture which brought him into prominence was "The Breakfast Table," exhibited in 1846. His later pictures gave evidence of a growing originality, and found ready purchasers. Among these were the following: "The Rival Beauties"; "Waiting for the Verdict," 1857, with its sequel, "The Verdict," 1859; "First and Third Class"; and "Found Drowned." Most of these became popular through engravings. One of his pictures, "The Fortune-Teller," was purchased by Alderman Salamons, and another, "Found Drowned," received a prize from the Liverpool Academy of Fine Arts.