A Conversation Piece..

Painted in 1884, this work belongs to Solomon Joseph Solomon's early career, when he was still establishing his reputation at the Royal Academy and finding his way between the grand subject painting he had trained for and the portraiture that would eventually dominate his output. Conversation pieces — intimate multi-figure compositions of figures engaged in social exchange — had a long history in British painting, and the genre suited Solomon's talent for psychological attentiveness and his pleasure in depicting fashionable interiors. By the 1880s, such scenes often served as vehicles for displaying up-to-date decorative arts and fashionable dress alongside the figures themselves. The work gives a glimpse into the social world that Solomon inhabited and depicted before institutional portraiture became his primary occupation.

The 1884 date places this work in oil on canvas executed with the influence of both the Royal Academy tradition and the contemporary taste for tonalist interiors. Solomon's early work tends toward richer, warmer colour than some of his contemporaries, and the conversation piece format would allow him to display decorative detail alongside figural painting.