https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1976-4505
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ABSTRACT
Between c.1825–1856, a French-born artist, Joseph Bouet, made approximately sixty pencil sketches of legal actors in the courtroom at Durham; including images of judges, lawyers, and defendants. Legal imagery from this period in North East England is rare and our research (presented in two parts) is the first detailed analysis of these sketches by legal scholars. This article introduces our preliminary analysis of Bouet’s sketches. We explore potential theoretical approaches and demonstrate that the images show the law in practice in a specific nineteenth century context. The value of our analysis is in revealing what the images tell us about legal institutions, the people who worked within them and the ‘objects/subjects’ of the law. The study makes an important contribution to socio-legal scholarship in demonstrating the value of such images as an underused source in legal historical research. The sketches are also the subject of a second article, Part 2 which presents three detailed case studies. The articles can be read as separate and independent pieces, but each benefit from being read in conjunction with the other.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Durham University Library and Collections for permission to reproduce images from the Bouet albums, and to the Durham University Palace Green Library archives for their assistance. Thank you also to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
A note on the Figures
The images we use in our analysis appear in both Parts 1 and 2 as Figures 1 to 9. Images 3-9 form the basis of the case studies in Part 2.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Douglas Burdon, ‘Joseph Bouet 1789–1856: A Revised Biography’ (2010) 75 Durham County Local History Society Journal 21, 26.
2 Joseph Bouet, Pencil drawings of celebrities of the city of Durham, by J. Bouet (Joseph Sebastien Victor François Bouet, sometimes called Nicolas Bouet, 1791–1856, artist, of Durham City). 75 portraits, including some engravings, photographs etc. (Durham University Library (DUL) Add MS 1300; and Add MS 17). The images are digitized at <https://iiif.durham.ac.uk/index.html?manifest=t1mzc77sq117> and <https://iiif.durham.ac.uk/index.html?manifest=t2m47429915d&canvas=t2t2v23vv65s> accessed 15 November 2022.
3 On the provenance and form of the albums, see David A Cross, The Art of Joseph Bouet (1795–1856): A Catalogue of Two Albums in Palace Green Library (Special Collections) Durham University With Reference to Other Works Located in Durham and Elsewhere (Unpublished 2003) 2.
4 On identification of the images, see Appendix to bill of sale of valuable books, engravings, pictures, &c, of the late Nicholas S. Bouet, Esq., to be sold by public auction, on … 22nd & 23rd … of January, 1857, at 27 Old Elvet, Durham … by John W Elliott, auctioneer, enumerating contents of scrap-book of the late Mr S Bouet (DUL Add MS 1301); Notes identifying some of the people portrayed in the album, in random order and without numerical references to the relevant drawings (DUL Add MS 1302–1303); Notes identifying people portrayed in drawings 3–56 (DUL Add MS 1304); Notebook of identifications of people portrayed in drawings 56–135 (DUL Add MS 1305).
5 The cataloguer of Bouet’s work, David Cross, has concentrated on the sketches of clergy and university personnel: see David A Cross, Joseph Bouet's Durham: Drawings from the Age of Reform (Durham County Local History Society 2005).
6 Leslie J Moran, ‘Visual Justice’ (2012) 8(3) International Journal of Law in Context 431.
7 Peter Goodrich, ‘Visiocracy. On the Futures of the Fingerpost’ (2020) 2 (9) Teoria E Critica Della Regolazione Sociale / Theory and Criticism of Social Regulation 11, 12.
8 Thomas Giddens, ‘Legal Aesthetics as Visual Method’ in Naomi Creutzfeldt and others (eds) Routledge Handbook of Socio-Legal Theory and Methods (Routledge 2019).
9 See for example, Linda Mulcahy, ‘Eyes of The Law: A Visual Turn in Socio-Legal Studies’ (2017) 44 (1) Journal of Law and Society 111.
10 For a comprehensive review of the relationship between images and the courtroom, see Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis, Representing Justice. Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (Yale University Press 2011).
11 On themes in studies on law and the visual, see Desmond Manderson, Law and the Visual: Representations, Technologies, Critique (University of Toronto Press 2018); and Anne Wagner and Richard K Sherwin (eds), Law, Culture and Visual Studies (Springer 2014). For an overview of studies of legal iconography, see Matthew C Mirow, ‘Legal Iconography and Painting Constitutional Law’ in MC Mirow and Howard M Wasserman (eds), Painting Constitutional Law: Xavier Cortada’s Images of Constitutional Rights (Brill 2021) 10. On the image in socio-legal studies more broadly, see Mulcahy (n 9).
12 See Resnik and Curtis (n 10).
13 Linda Mulcahy, Legal Architecture. Justice, Due Process and the Place of Law (Routledge 2011) 1; and for example, Shailesh Kumar, ‘Interpreting the Scales of Justice: Architecture, Symbolism and Semiotics of the Supreme Court of India’ (2017) 30 The International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 637.
14 On justice architecture and decoration in the nineteenth century, see Gaëlle Dubois and Amandine De Burchgraeve, ‘Experiencing Justice in the Cour d’assises of Brabant (1893–1913): A Place of Education and Entertainment.’; Stefan Huygebaert, ‘The Judge, the Artist and the (Legal) Historian: Théophile Smekens, Pieter Van der Ouderaa, Pieter Génard and the Antwerp cour d’assises’; and Rahela Khorakiwala, ‘Depictions of Justice in the Colonial Courts of British India: The Judicial Iconography of the Bombay High Court’ in Stefan Huygebaert and others (eds), The Art of Law (Springer 2018).
15 Costas Douzinas and Lynda Nead, Law and the Image. The Authority of Art and the Aesthetics of Law (University of Chicago Press 1999) 9.
16 Lynda Nead, ‘Courtroom Sketching: Reflections on History, Law and the Image’ in Michael Freeman (ed), Law and Popular Culture (Oxford University Press 2005) 173.
17 Marshall Hall, The Artists of Northumbria: An Illustrated Dictionary of Northumberland, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Durham and North East Yorkshire Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, Stained Glass Designers, Illustrators, Caricaturists and Cartoonists Born Between 1625 and 1950 (Art Dictionaries Limited 2005) 56. Cross (n 5).
18 Cross (n 3) 11; Burdon (n 1).
19 Application for Naturalization Joseph Sebastien Victor Francois Bouet 1848 (TNA HO 1/27/731).
20 See Cross (n 3) and (British Museum website) <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG20420> accessed 22 November 2022.
21 Cross (n 3) 16 and Burdon (n 1); The Directory of the County of Durham (Hagar and Co 1851) 36.
22 ‘Died’ Durham County Advertiser (Durham, 26 December 1856) 8.
23 For example, the Durham Midsummer Quarter Sessions reported in North and South Shields Gazette and Northumberland and Durham Advertiser (Durham, 2 July 1852) 2.
24 ‘Durham Borough Police’ Durham Chronicle (Durham, 9 March 1849) 4.
25 Joseph Bouet, North Gate 1824 (DC Add MS 95/4) and Joseph Bouet North Gate Lithograph c.1824 (British Museum 1878,0713.4711); Gateway to the Old Gaol at Durham printed by W Day c1821 (D/CL 23/232); Old Gaol and Saddler Street, Durham Wood engraving c.1821 (DU/Dur/M1 DCO Prints (T)).
26 Ignatius Bonomi (1787–1870): see Peter Meadows, ‘Bonomi, Ignatius Richard Frederick Nemesius (1787–1870) Architect’ in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford 2004).
27 Ignatius Bonomi (attributed to) Plan of Durham Assize Courts and Prison (c1811), (Friends of the National Libraries). <grants.fnl.org.uk/plan-durham-assize-courts-and-prison-attributed-ignatius-bonomi-c1811> accessed 22 November 2022.
28 Joseph Bouet Sketch of Ignatius Bonomi (DUL Add MS 1300/219A).
29 Joseph Bouet and others, The rules and regulations of the Durham County Penitentiary. Adopted at the General Meeting, held in the Grand Jury-Room, Durham, on the 12th day of March 1851, with the alterations and additions of the Governors, adopted at the General Meeting of the members, held on the 8th day of April, 1853. (George Walker 1853) frontispiece.
30 (British Museum website) (n 20); (National Portrait Gallery Website) <https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp126870/joseph-nicholas-bouet> accessed 25 November 2022.
31 See also Cross (n 3) 8.
32 For an overview, see Nicole Myers ‘The Aesthetic of the Sketch in Nineteenth Century France’ in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000). See also Cross, (n 3) 11.
33 Cross (n 3) 8.
34 Jean–Auguste–Dominique Ingres (1780–1867).
35 Burdon (n 1) 21.
36 For example, see Archibald Skirving (British Museum) <www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG46401> accessed 27 March 2023.
37 Honoré Daumier (1808–1879). Colta Ives, ‘Lawyers and the Courts’, in Colta Feller Ives, Margaret Stuffmann, and Martin Sonnabend, Daumier Drawings (The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1992) 174.
38 On Daumier’s motivations in these artworks see Gary Watt, ‘Dickens, Daumier and The Man of Law’ in Ian Ward (ed), A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Reform (Bloomsbury Academic 2019) 147.
39 George Cruikshank (1792–1878). George Cruikshank, Heads of Different Types of People in Connection with the Law. Etching by George Cruikshank after himself (Etching 1834).
40 The handful of satirical drawings in the Bouet albums are more detailed, perhaps designed for public distribution; see Cross (n 3) 6.
41 Joseph Bouet, Sketch of William Jobling (DUL Add MS 1300/142); ‘Execution of William Jobling’, Newcastle Journal (Newcastle, 4 August 1832) 3; Joseph Bouet, Sketch of Jacob Frederick Ehlert (DUL Add MS 1300/136 and 1300/137); ‘The execution of the Prussian Mate at Durham Yesterday’ Newcastle Journal (Newcastle, 17 August 1839) 3.
42 Cross (n 3) 5.
43 For example, Members of the Scottish Bench and Bar 1821 (National Galleries of Scotland) <www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/48964/members-scottish-bench-and-bar> accessed 15 August 2022.
44 See for example, (British Museum) <https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0808-1638> accessed 30 August 2022 and <https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/104750/louisa-demont-active-1814-1820-witness-trial-queen-caroline> accessed 30 August 2022.
45 See Abraham Wivell (National Portrait Gallery) <https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp07749/abraham-wivell> accessed 30 August 2022. See also, for example, Richard Cosway (Royal Academy of Arts) <www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/richard-cosway-ra> accessed 15 August 2022.
46 Sebastian Evans, Book of Sketches, Including Members of Bench and Bar: Drawings by Sebastian Evans, circa 1848–85 (National Portrait Gallery) <www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp06947/sebastian-evans?role=art> accessed 27 March 2023.
47 See Douglas Burdon, Exhibitions of Work by Joseph Bouet (2009); and Cross (n 3) 1.
48 For this reason, we differentiate Bouet’s images from the early 20th century courtroom art of Breton Judge Cavellat (see Ruth Herz, The Art of Justice: The Judge’s Perspective (Hart Publishing 2012).
49 For an overview see (Tate) <www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/portrait> accessed 27 March 2023.
50 Joseph Bouet, Sketch of Wolf (DUL Add MS 1300/47).
51 Joseph Bouet, Sketch of J Wharton (DUL Add MS 17/39).
52 Joseph Bouet, Sketch of R H Allan, High Sheriff of Durham (DUL Add MS 1300/6); Joseph Bouet, Sketch of Charles John Clavering, High Sheriff of Durham 1829–1833 (DUL Add MS 1300/121); Joseph Bouet, Sketch of J Bowes Esq. High Sheriff of Durham 1852 (DUL Add MS 1300/229B); Joseph Bouet, Sketch of Frederick Aclom Milbank, Sheriff of Durham 1853 (DUL Add MS 1300/236); Joseph Bouet, Sketch of double portrait Frederick Milbank with Baron Martin (DUL Add MS 1300/236).
53 There is much debate as to whether such drawings are intended to be true likenesses, or rather whether they are drawn to convey the action and atmosphere in court. See for example discussions in 2022 around courtroom drawings of the Kardashian family in a US libel case (Angela White (aka Blac Chyna) v Robert Kardashian et al) and in the Rebekah Vardy v Coleen Rooney libel trial in the UK.
54 Criminal Justice Act 1925 s 41.
55 Nead (n 16) 173.
56 The UK Supreme Court live-streams footage of certain proceedings. From October 2013 proceedings in the Court of Appeal can be recorded and broadcast to the public. The Crown Court (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2020 (SI 2020/637) permits the sentencing remarks of High Court and senior circuit judges in certain criminal cases to be filmed and broadcast.
57 Nead (n 16) 174.
58 ibid 181.
59 On the ceremonies for the arrival of the judge and the opening of the assizes, see JS Cockburn, A History of English Assizes 1558–1714 (Cambridge University Press 1972) 65; and Dick Hamilton, Foul Bills & Dagger Money: 800 Years of Lawyers and Lawbreakers (Professional Books 1988) 56.
60 For example, Joseph Bouet, Sketch of J Bowes Esq, High Sheriff of Durham 1852 (DUL Add MS 1300/229B); Joseph Bouet, Sketch of Frederick Aclom Milbank, Sheriff of Durham 1853 (DUL Add MS 1300/237).
61 ‘Durham Summer Assizes’ Newcastle Courant (Newcastle, 28 July 1854) 3.
62 Burton (n 1) 26.
63 On the 1870 revisions, see (Archiseek) <archiseek.com/2009/1870-new-assizes-courts-durham/> accessed 27 March 2023. The Court is still in daily use.
64 Isobel Williams, ‘Drawing the Line’ (2017) Proof 64. See also, Isobel Williams, The Body of Law Exhibition – (The Less Textual Legal Gallery) <tldr.legal> accessed 27 May 2022.
65 Joseph Bouet, Sketch of Baron Parke (DUL Add MS 1300/143).
66 Linda Mulcahy, ‘Watching Women: What Illustrations of Courtroom Scenes Tell us About Women and the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth Century’ (2015) 42 (1) Journal of Law and Society 53.
67 See AHRC funded project, ‘Judging Images: The Making, Management and Consumption of Judicial Images’ (AHRC AH/L007290/1) and Leslie J Moran, Law, Judges and Visual Culture (Routledge 2020); Leslie J Moran, ‘Imagining the Judge: Fragments of a Study of Judicial Portraiture’ in Ǎ. Modéer and M. Sunnqvist (eds), Legal Staging: Visualisation – Mediatisation – Ritualisation: Legal Communication through Language, Literature, Media, Art and Architecture (Copenhagen University Press 2012) 205.
68 For example, Leslie J Moran, ‘Judging Pictures: A Case Study of Portraits of the Chief Justices Supreme Court New South Wales’ (2009) 5 (3) International Journal of Law in Context 61.
69 See Patrick Polden, ‘Judging Judges’ in Anthony Musson and Chantal Stebbings (eds), Making Legal History (Cambridge University Press 2012) 53.
70 Durham was part of the Northern Circuit until 1876; thereafter it joined the North-Eastern Circuit.
71 Wilfrid Prest, ‘History and Biography, Legal and Otherwise’ (2011) 32 Adelaide Law Review 185, 203.
72 David Sugarman, ‘From Legal Biography to Legal Life Writing: Broadening Conceptions of Legal History and Socio-legal Scholarship’ (2015) 42 (1) Journal of Law and Society 11.
73 Leslie J Moran, ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’; Picturing Judicial Biography’, [2014] Legal Information Management 27.
74 On the visual and legal history, see Carolin Behrmann, ‘Law, Visual Studies, and Image History’ in Simon Stern and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities (Oxford University Press 2020) 39; Anthony Musson, ‘Visualising Legal History: The Courts and Legal Profession in Image’, in David Ibbotson and others (eds), English Legal History and its Sources Essays in Honour of Sir John Baker (Cambridge University Press 2019) 203. On potential difficulties in employing visual sources in legal history, see Anthony Musson, ‘Visual Sources’ in Anthony Musson and Chantal Stebbings (eds), Making Legal History (Cambridge University Press 2012) 264.
75 On the image in the production of knowledge about law, see Linda Mulcahy, ‘Sociology of Legal Images’ in Jiří Přibáň (ed), Research Handbook on the Sociology of Law (Edward Elgar Publishing 2020) 203. On images as historical evidence more generally see Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing: The Uses of Images as Historical Evidence (Reaktion 2019).
76 Linda Mulcahy and David Sugarman, ‘Introduction: Legal Life Writing and Marginalized Subjects and Sources’ (2015) 42 (1) Journal of Law and Society 1.
77 Digitized newspapers are an invaluable source. We would like to explore the Durham Assize files in the National Archives in Kew, but this location undoubtedly presents significant practical (and economic) difficulties to academics based in the North East of England.
78 Our reasons for this assumption are explored in Case Study 1 in Part 2.
79 ‘Portrait’, (Tate) <www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/portrait>accessed 15 August 2022.
80 Linda Mulcahy, ‘Docile Suffragettes? Resistance to Police Photography and the Possibility of Object–Subject Transformation’ (2015) 23 (1) Feminist Legal Studies 79.
81 Peter Doyle, Crooks Like Us (Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales 2016); Peter Doyle, City of shadows: Sydney police photographs, 1912–1948. (Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales 2005); Peter Doyle, ‘Public Eye, Private Eye: Sydney Police Mug Shots, 1912–1930’ (2005) 2(3) Scan: Journal of Media Arts Culture (np).
82 Mulcahy (n 81) 85.
83 Joseph Bouet, Sketch of William Jobling (n 41).
84 On the living criminal body, see Diana Miranda and Helena Machado, ‘Photographing Prisoners: The Unworthy, Unpleasant and Unchanging Criminal Body’ (2019) 19 (5) Criminology & Criminal Justice 591; Owen Davies and Francesca Matteoni, Executing Magic in the Modern Era, Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine (Palgrave Macmillan 2017) 11.
85 On ‘external’ legal histories see David Ibbetson, ‘What is Legal History a History Of?’ (2003) 6 Law and History Current Legal Issues 33; Stuart Banner, ‘Review of Legal History, Inside and Out, by Christopher Tomlins’ (2011) 68 (4) The William and Mary Quarterly 725. On the distinction between internal and external legal history, see Robert W Gordon, ‘Introduction: J. Willard Hurst and the Common Law Tradition in American Legal Historiography’ (1975) 10 Law and Society Review 9.
86 Leslie J Moran, ‘Judicial Bodies as Sexual Bodies: A Tale of Two Portraits’ (2008) 29 (1) Australian Feminist Law Journal 91, 94.
87 On ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ methodologies see, Geoff Eley, A Crooked Line: From Cultural History to the History of Society (University of Michigan Press 2005); Peter N Stearns, ‘Social History Present and Future’ (2003) 37 Journal of Social History 1.
88 Douzinas and Nead (n 15) 58.
89 (As an example, see case study 2 in Part 2: ).
90 Ludmilla Jordanova, Portraits, Biographies and Public History (Gresham College Lectures) <www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/portraits-biographies≥ accessed 21 February 2022; Ludmilla Jordanova, ‘Portraiture, Biography and Public Histories’ (2022) 32 Transactions of the RHS 159.