 Mintons had a history of employing foreign artists.Its first Frenchman arrived in 1848, the art director Léon Arnoux, followed by other French makers such as the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, so Solon was joining a small continental community when he settled in Staffordshire and married Arnoux's daughter.The Solons brought up a large family at The Villas near the Mintons factory.