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Wolmark's monumental canvas illustrates the famous line from Robert Browning’s poem ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’: ‘Let age speak the truth, and give us peace at last'. The artist made two extended trips to his native Poland in 1903–1905 and 1905–1906 to carry out studies for the painting, basing himself in the University city of Krakow, then a centre of Jewish artistic activity associated with the Jewish national revival.

This painting formed the centrepiece of Wolmark's first solo exhibition at the Bruton Galleries in London in 1905, the year of the British ‘Aliens Act’ – designed to stem the tide of Jewish immigrants at the source. Its inclusion can be interpreted as an act of cultural identity. The artist both asserted and reconciled his Polish, Jewish and English roots – perhaps underlined by the inclusion of a self-portrait in the painting's background centre.