Henry James compared Daumier’s work to the highest form of journalism: “Many people would tell us that journalism is the greatest invention of our Age… Journalism is criticism of the moment at the moment, and caricature is that criticism at once simplified and intensified by a plastic form” (Henry James, “Daumier Caricaturist," in Century Magazine, New York, 1890, n.p.). Daumier himself had experienced the sharp end of French justice, having been charged with sedition for his contemptuous portrayal of Louis-Philippe in 1832 for which he served six months in jail. There is an argument to be made that Daumier sought to draw attention to the vulnerable of society who suffered most from the flaws in the system, but his superb drawings and paintings of court-scenes and lawyers—the majority of which date from between 1850 and 1864—often have a lighter satirical touch. In the best of these it is the energy and the drama of proceedings which seem to be the principal subject. The present work is among the most vigorous, with a penumbra of lively pencil lines clearly visible around the subject’s outstretched arms. The frenzied outrage which Daumier was trying to capture is apparent in his animated sketches on this theme (see figs. 1 & 2).

It is no coincidence that Daumier’s family lived across from the Palais de Justice in Paris. After his marriage in 1846, Daumier moved to Île Saint-Louis, but was still a short distance away from the courts, allowing him ample opportunity to observe daily proceedings in the corridors, stairways and halls of the Palais, sometimes penetrating the inner courts. From a draftsman's perspective, the black and white of the robes and wigs must have been irresistible to Daumier who was a skilled lithographer, and though he could not have anticipated how little the garb of court has changed over the subsequent centuries, the scenes he recorded with such insight and originality are remarkably timeless.