Figure with head scarf
Simeon Solomon British
Not on view
This androgynous figure may represent King David, the Old Testament figure whose love for Jonathan the artist saw as a legitimizing model for love between men. The style and iconography here respond to the artist's own 1871 prose poem, "A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep," where a narrator and his soul journey through a landscape in a dream state, experiencing visions that relate to forms and conditions of love. In a series of related late works, Solomon represented one or two heads in profile using a style that moves away from the Pre-Raphaelitism of Dante Gabriel Rossetti towards Symbolism.
This artwork is meant to be viewed from right to left. Scroll left to view more.