Psyche

The myth of Psyche — the mortal girl whose beauty rivalled Aphrodite's, who endured divine trials to be united with Eros — was among the most persistent subjects in European academic painting from the Renaissance onward. Solomon Joseph Solomon, despite his primary reputation as a portraitist, produced mythological subjects throughout his career, and a 1902 Psyche fits within the late Victorian taste for classically derived female figures rendered with academic precision. By this date the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements had thoroughly domesticated mythological subjects for British audiences, and painters like Waterhouse and Leighton had made such works commercially and critically viable. Solomon's version would join a rich tradition while bringing his own particular sense of psychological presence to the figure.

An oil-on-canvas treatment of Psyche at this date would likely feature a central female figure, possibly with butterfly wings signifying her mythological identity, painted with the smooth, luminous flesh tones that the Aesthetic movement had made fashionable. The background might evoke a classical landscape or interior.