Waiting for the Verdict

A distraught family waits for the verdict to exonerate their loved one outside a courtroom. The red-robed judge presiding over the case is visible through the door in the background, above the somber lawyers in white wigs. Each family member expresses a different degree of anxiety and anticipation: the father of the accused covers his eyes in despair while the young woman in the center glances expectantly over her shoulder to the courtroom. Even the family dog is present and faithfully waits for his master.



Extremely successful during his lifetime, Abraham Solomon represented a major trend of Victorian painting with his contemporary-life genre pictures, the affecting narrative, dramatic, and moral appeal of which resonated powerfully with the popular taste for melodrama. Waiting for the Verdict, one of a pair, is a fine autograph replica of his most famous painting. The original (now at the Tate), exhibited in London in 1857, left its audience in suspense until the sequel, Not Guilty, revealed the outcome when it was shown two years later in 1859. The artist painted three sets of replicas and numerous prints of the composition were sold across the country, attesting to the popularity of these images among viewers of the time.