Rebecca Solomon

Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906); thence to William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett Burdett-Coutts (1851-1921)

By whose Executors sold ('The Property of Rt. Hon. W. Burdett-Coutts, M.P'), Darlington, Messrs. G. Tarn Bainbridge, Son & Handley, 2-3 November 1922

Acquired by the mother of the present owner circa 1980

Sara Gray, The Dictionary of British Women Artists, 2009, p. 244 (as Roman Wedding Party)

Rebecca Solomon was one of 38 women artists in 1859 to sign a petition to allow women to study at the Royal Academy of Art. Highly regarded during her lifetime, her art explored contemporary themes, predominantly around women’s role in society.

The present work, completed in 1869, differs somewhat to her compositions of previous years. The Roman Wedding depicts a young couple, newly married, in an idealised Italianate setting. Two musicians play tunes on their instruments, a girl stares adoringly at the couple, perhaps hopeful of her own wedding one day, and a young girl clutches cherries and offers them to her mother who looks to the couple expectantly, perhaps seeing her younger self in the bride. The scene depicts a content and happy moment between this group, surrounded in a beautiful landscape with roses - a symbol of love - in the background and by the couple’s feet.

Solomon had previously explored a number of contemporary issues in her art, particularly around race, gender and class. The Young Teacher (1861) (sold at Sotheby’s, 23^rd March 2022, for £302,400, lot 32) shows Fanny Eaton as a maid with two young children, one reading to her. Eaton was a working-class woman of mixed-race heritage, employed to model for many artists of the period, including Rebecca’s brother Simeon, as well as Frederick Sandys, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Albert Moore.

As a member of the Jewish community living in London in the mid-19th century, Solomon was also part of a marginalised strata of society. Sadly, four years after The Roman Wedding was painted Rebecca became even more ostracised when her family reputation was destroyed by the arrest of her brother Simeon, for homosexual offenses – plunging her into a scandal from which she was virtually ruined.

Prior to this event, Rebecca was close to her younger brother. She never married and lived and shared studios with Simeon from 1865 until the mid-1870s. She also assisted him in his travels to Italy during the late 1860s acting as his agent with wealthy patrons. Whilst in Rome, Rebecca was commissioned by Baroness Burdett-Coutts (1814-1906) to paint the present work (Sara Gray, The Dictionary of British Women Artists, 2009, p. 244). The Baroness had previously purchased Rebecca’s Behind the Curtain (1858) in 1862.

Baroness Burdett-Coutts became one of the wealthiest women in England in 1837 after inheriting her grandfather’s wealth, (the banker Thomas Coutts). A philanthropist and patron of the arts, Baroness Burdett-Coutts co-founded the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1884 (later the NSPCC) and was closely involved with the RSPCA. She too spent the majority of her life single until she married her 29 year old secretary when she was 67. Her art collection included works by Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Joshua Reynolds and countless Old Masters, but the Baroness was also a patron for female arts, having bought works by Mary Ann Criddle and Anna Mary Howitt, as well as Rebecca Solomon.

The Roman Wedding does not immediately present us with any obvious allegory other than a celebration of love. However, it’s feasible that the young child, the bride and the woman seated on the step, display the past, present and future of this woman’s life. Commissioned by a woman, painted by a woman and celebrating the life of a woman, it’s likely Solomon was content in presenting this rustic and naïve way of life as something to be celebrated and admired.