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"The Royal Academy. The One Hundred and First Exhibition. Second Notice." The Art-Journal, 1 July 1869: 201.

... ‘The Toilette of a Roman Lady’ (787), by Simeon Solomon. The last work should have obtained a better place than in a corner above the line. ... Again, wholly distinct in style from any of the three classic works just mentioned [Watts’s Orpheus & Eurydice, Leighton’s Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon, and A. Moore’s A Venus] comes ‘The Toilette of a Roman Lady’ (787), by Mr. Simeon Solomon. This remarkable composition, unlike the figures of Mr. Moore and Mr. Leighton, evinces joy and rapture in colour; the romance of modern and middle-age Art has infused warm tone, and swelling exuberant form, into the severity of the classic. Mr. Solomon has evidently received as a suggestion to his picture certain well-known mural paintings of Pompeii; we recognise analogous types even to the full, thick, Roman throat. The style is somewhat decorative, and pertains to periods of decadence; nevertheless, this is one of the artist’s very best efforts; it has more power and firmness than drawings recently exhibited in the Dudley Gallery. Close by hangs a refined subtle work, distinguished by colour, ‘Helena and Hermia’ (785), by Miss R. Solomon; the manner of brother and sister naturally is not wholly unlike.

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