Object Image

The Bathers Alarmed

Solomon Joseph Solomon was an unusually versatile artist, at a time when many artists tended to focus on a favoured genre. While he is mainly known for his portraiture he also produced biblical, or in the case of this distinguished nude painting, mythical scenes. We see women bathing in a pool suddenly realising they are being observed by a man on a rearing white horse in the top left of picture. It is suggestive of the myth of the huntress Diana who was observed by Actaeon. She turned him into a stag and he was torn apart by his own hunting dogs.

Solomon was a founder member of the Royal Academy’s rival exhibiting society, the New English Art Club in 1886, but a decade later became one of the...

Oil on Canvas
54.6 x 80.0cm
BORGM 02011
Image and text © Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, 2021

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