Day; and Night

According to the instructions which some of them have on the back, these two allegorical figures of Night and Day together with the Seasons, (see lot 104) were conceived for the entrance hall in some scheme of interior decoration. However, by 1906, when they were included in Solomon's memorial exhibition at the Baillie Gallery, London, they had been mounted as a folding screen. Only in recent years were they separated again to form a set of easel paintings.

The scheme for which they were originally intended has not been identified, but it must have been an expression of Aesthetic taste. The paintings themselves tell us as much, being executed in a highly decorative style and in several instances incorporating the floral motifs that were so characteristic of Aesthetic imagery.

It is tempting to see a connection with a more famous project of this kind: a set of six watercolours representing identical figures that Burne-Jones painted between 1869 and 1871 for the Liverpool shipowner Frederick Leyland (Day and Night are in the Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard, the four Seasons in a private collection). The figures were destined for the magnificent Aesthetic interior that Leyland created at 22 Queen's Gate, his London house from 1868 to 1874, when he moved on to even greater splendour at 49 Prince's Gate.

Although Burne-Jones was inclined to look on Solomon with awe in the early 1860s, there seems little doubt that Solomon would have been the borrower on this occasion, not only depicting the same figures but echoing Burne-Jones's compositions in numerous details. The link would have a bearing on the date of Solomon's panels, although it is not clear when the prototypes might have crossed his path. He could either have seen them when they were in progress in Burne-Jones's studio in 1869-71 or when they were exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878.
Post Lot Text
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