“Artists at this time can get away with [suggesting] quite a lot providing there’s no hard proof,” points out Barlow. “It’s only when Solomon gets caught that all these rumours that have been swirling about decadence and sickliness crystallise into a specific sexual act.”

Although there is a sadness to Solomon’s story – famous friends dropped him, and he died in a workhouse in Covent Garden in 1905 – the artist did continue to produce work with impressive tenacity and creative conviction. And, later in life, he also achieved something of a cult status within gay circles. Frederick Hollyer, the great populariser of the Pre-Raphaelites, sold photographs of his work, and collectors included Oscar Wilde, essayist and critic Walter Pater, and the writer John Addington Symonds. “If you’re trying to seduce elegant young men in the 1890s, showing them your Simeon Solomon Hollyer editions is not likely to do you any harm,” says Barlow wryly.

Queer eye

Queer British Art is a show that, necessarily, often invites us to read (or re-read) work through the frame of the artist’s life, allowing what we know – or guess – about their sexual desires to open up fresh potential meanings. “It’s always tempting to read the biography into the work – that’s something which can be illuminating but can also be problematic. But he does produce these incredibly agonised series of highly symbolist works at the end of his life,” says Barlow. She refers to a series of depictions of very tortured Medusa heads, cross-gendered male. They’re referred to as masculine in the Latin inscriptions, which say things like “it is the worst thing for the best to become corrupted” or given titles such as The Tormented Conscience.