3-071-260 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Mr. S. A. Hart, R.A., 1881. 'The death of this veteran artist, who held the office of Librarian to the Royal Academy, was recorded last week. Mr. Solomon Alexander Hart was of the Jewish race and religion...During a visit to Italy in 1841-2 he made an elaborate series of drawings, originally intended for publication, of architectural interiors and sites famous in history. Mr. Hart employed the materials then collected in several pictures. Of his works "Menasseh Ben Israel Pleading with Oliver Cromwell for the Admission of the Jews" was the most successful. Great pains were taken with this work, which was designed by the artist as an offering to the memory of the Protector, by whose statesmanship the ancestors of the painter had been permitted to settle in England...[His] "Coeur de Lion and the Soldan Saladin," 1835, led to his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy...Mr. Hart also painted landscapes and portraits, and contributed to the Atheneum, the Jewish Chronicle, and other periodicals. He served repeatedly on the hanging committee of the Royal Academy and on the committee of the Athenaeum Club. In 1857 he succeeded Mr. Leslie as Professor of Painting in the Royal Academy'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.