Samuel Colman (1832-1920) was an English painter, based in Bristol for most of his career. In about 1815 Colman moved from Yeovil to Bristol, where he lived until around 1840. He worked as a portrait painter and drawing-master in the city, as well as painting minutely detailed Romantic, Biblical and genre scenes. He was loosely associated with the grouping of artists known as the Bristol School which flourished from the Regency era onwards.

The artist's contemporaries would have described this painting as a ''poetic landscape'' and it is a characteristic style of the Bristol School. The Old Testament story shown is the Queen of Sheba arriving in Jerusalem with a large entourage and lavish gifts for King Solomon. She can just be seen being carried on a throne through the arch in the distance but, curiously, the king himself is nowhere to be seen. The ghost-like appearance of the figures is due to the thin paint becoming more transparent with age.