Self-Portrait with Candles

Leah Alice (Lily) Delissa Solomon was born in London into an affluent manufacturing family. Like her older brother, Solomon J. Solomon, she attended the London Royal College of Art. She became a noted portraitist and also embraced Impressionist styles in her urban scenes. She married Delissa Joseph (a Jewish Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects) in 1887. Joseph was a committed feminist; insisting on driving her own car and becoming one of the world’s first female aviators, she also lent significant philanthropic support to the empowerment of women in Jewish life and became a noted suffragist who was jailed for political activism at the time of her first solo exhibition.