Solomon favoured genre scenes and works on literary themes; painted in 1861, his penultimate year, this painting takes the French seventeenth-century playwright Molière’s popular play, 'Le Malade imaginaire' (or 'The Hypochondriac'), as its subject. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy on 6 May 1861 as (No. 464) 'Le Malade imaginaire'. Another version of this painting is held by the Wellcome Collection along with an engraving by H. Bourne, after Abraham Solomon, of this version. The British Museum also holds a copy of the same engraving, from the 'Coll: R. P. Harding, Esq. Wood Hall, East Dulwich' – the same provenance as this iteration of the painting. The Wellcome also has another Solomon painting on the same subject but a different less finished composition.