Her father was Michael (Meyer) Solomon, the first Jew to be honoured with the Freedom of the City of London; her mother was Catherine (Kate) Levy.

[1] In 1886, Solomon died aged 54, from injuries sustained after being run over by a hansom cab on the Euston Road in central London.

When Solomon started painting genre scenes, her work demonstrated an observant eye for class, ethnic and gender discrimination.

[7] One critic commented on the wholesome, moral and sometimes humanizing sentiment in her art, not an uncommon element in Victorian painting.

Over the next ten to fifteen years, her artwork explored the plight of women and minorities, and the dominance of class discrimination in English society.

True to her vision, she continued to include images that reflected the historical foundations of nineteenth-century social injustice.

The Governess (1854), compares the lives of two women within a Victorian home; One being an isolated working-class woman and the other, married and of a higher status.