Colman depicts the arrival of Queen of Sheba in Jerusalem with her large entourage bringing lavish gifts for King Solomon in the tradition of the poetical or ?Claudian' landscape, which had been established in European art since the 17th century and continued fascinate British audiences. In fact, Claude Lorrain's own Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648), which bears some similarities of compositional structure, was among the first works to be bought for the National Gallery in 1824 from the collection of John Julius Angerstein.

Colman's 'Claudian' rendering of the scene also includes the adaptation of the Queen as white and the natural setting as largely European. The hills, trees, placid waters and Greco-Egyptian buildings are bathed in golden sunlight. But Colman exoticizes the scene to a degree through the introduction of palm trees, peacocks and brightly-coloured flowers. The Queen can just be seen being carried on a throne by her retinue through the arch in the distance, while Solomon does not appear in the scene.

The ghost-like appearance of the figures is due to the thin paint becoming more transparent with age, a feature of many of Colman's pictures in Bristol Museum & Art Gallery's collection.

[From: 'Absolutely Bizarre! Strange Tales from the Bristol School of Artists (1800-1840)', catalogue of an exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Bordeaux, June 10 to October 17, 2021.]