Defendant and Counsel. 1895. Oil on canvas. 52 1/2 x 78 1/4 inches (133.3 x 198.7 cm). Collection of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives, accession no. K527. Image from Art UK shown here for research purposes. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Defendant and Counsel, one of Yeames's rare incursions into modern-life genre subjects, was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, no. 309. The genesis of this picture is discussed by Mary Helen Stephen Smith in her recollections of her uncle:
Had his next picture been painted in later years, it would have been dubbed a "mystery" picture, for it raised quite a controversy over its story. As my uncle had never thought of one, but had merely evolved the subject from a pictorial point of view, he was rather hard put to answer the many questioning letters he received, one lady going so far as to say it was keeping her awake at nights. The publishing firm of Cassell's even offered a prize for the best story on the subject, which my uncle was asked to judge. This picture, called Defendant and Counsel, presents a pretty woman dressed in velvet and sable with a big picture hat, seated in a solicitor's room, and being interrogated by counsel in wigs and gowns. Their tense expressions and the worried look on the girl's face all point to some very vital point being under discussion. It is now in the Bristol Art Gallery. The custodian there said he had so many people asking him for its story that out of self-defence he had to concoct one himself about it, which he regularly repeated to questioners. But what it is I really do not know. [220]
The write-up provided by the Bristol Art Gallery on Art UK noted that the entries Yeames received concerning the subject of the picture had the lady involved
in cases ranging from divorce to murder. Yeames is said to have claimed that he had only pictorial effect in mind but he ultimately responded to persistent enquiries: "I beg to say that the scene of my picture of Defendant and Counsel is supposed to take place in one of the consulting rooms attached to a court of law, where counsel and clients meet at intervals to discuss how the case should be carried on. My only idea when painting the picture was to depict the eagerness of counsel to obtain, from the lady defendant, information on a point on which the defense depended and the unwillingness of the lady to enlighten them lest, by doing so, she should compromise a friend of hers."
The model for the defendant was Mary Yeames's younger sister who had earlier posed in 1884 as a little girl for the figure of Mary Pierrepont for The Toast of the Kitcat Club.
The painting was one of those selected for reproduction in Stephen Smith, facing p. 220. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
When the picture was shown at the Royal Academy it soon gained notoriety because of the uncertain nature of the crime the young woman was accused of. R. Jope Slade, the critic for The Art Journal, obviously believed the action involved a divorce proceeding: "Mr. Yeames provides a good deal of quiet drollery in his Defendant and Counsel, the visit, obviously for a matrimonial action, of a pretty woman to her lawyers. A short study of the picture will show that counsel has asked an awkward question that the defendant finds difficult enough to answer" (166).
F. G. Stephens, in his first notice of the Royal Academy exhibition in The Athenaeum, considered this work "first-rate," describing it as depicting "an unlucky and puzzled beauty 'in chambers' with three astute lawyers who 'heckle' her terribly," and calling it "a piece of vigorous humour and good painting" (574). In a later and more extensive notice Stephens was pleased that the picture was considered one of the pictures of the year:
It is an agreeable surprise to find Mr. Yeames's painting one of the pictures of the year in his Defendant and Counsel (309), the design of which, nevertheless, is not quite so clear as at first sight it seems. A comely young wife holds in her hand a document, which solicitors say is a deed, and her puzzled, not to say alarmed expression suggests forgery of one sort or another in which she and the deed are concerned. At the same time it is quite evident that the two young counsel and the respected solicitor, her companions in the rather bare lawyer's office, are witnesses to the very severe "heckling" of the lady by a third young counsel, whose questions, pressed with a stern sort of energy, which is capitally illustrated, seem to have opened an abyss before her feet. The question suggests itself, If the legal gentlemen are not her counsel, how came she before them? And if they are her counsel, why do they treat the fair in so severe a manner? A famous Q.C. said to us, "It will do for a picture, you know!" But this contempt is unworthy of art, and it wrong to the attainment of the Academician who has thus perplexed his admirers. Apart from the ladies attitude, the fine points of his design are her "modernity," grace, intelligence, and vivacity, the vigorous countenance of her assailant, the observant looks of both his brethren, and the sympathetic expression of the solicitor. There is much good and sound painting in the furniture and accessories of the office, while the lady's gown of silver-grey silk, her black cloak trimmed for sable fur, her dainty hat and glossy hair are due to a hand as able, firm, and skilful as that which depicted with so much power and taste her refined and natural carnations, and drew her features and hands. [711]
M. H. Spielmann, the editor of The Magazine of Art, thought the composition clever but too large: "Modern life is not without its devotees – men who feel that art to be true to itself must deal with the scenes it sees about it. So Mr. Yeames has gone to the law courts (though legal experts declare that he has not), and in Defendant and Counsel has executed a clever enigmatical scene between a pretty hard-pressed woman and bewigged lawyers – the chief fault of which is that it is on a scale altogether too large" (325).
Bibliography
Defendant and Counsel. Art UK. Web. 2 September 2023.
Slade, R. Jope. "The Royal Academy of Art, 1895." The Art Journal New Series XXXIV (1895): 161-81.
Spielmann, Marion H. "The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Magazine of Art XVIII (1895): 321-25.
Stephen Smith, Mary Helen. Art and Anecdote. Recollection of William Frederick Yeames, R.A. His Life and his Friends. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1927.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 3523 (4 May 1895): 574-79.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 3527 (1 June 1895): 710-12.
Created 2 September 2023