Appendix CASE ONE - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset ...

88 Legal History in the Making
lame. And, fourthly, pigeons (or are they lovebirds?) are flying away from
the dovecote. Can this indicate a breach of the peace? And so one could go
on. For example, are the dogs symbolic? And what do we make of the various
writings on the picture above the fireplace, and on the bowl of the caption
below the picture?
My third picture (Illustration 3) is entitled: 'Paul Pry's Peep into Chancery'.
It too is satirical in nature. It refers in specific terms to Chancery. It was
produced in 1826, the year in which a Chancery Commission virtually absolved
Lord Eldon's court of Chancery of blame in respect of two powerful allegations
of undue expense and delay which were constantly levelled at it. It clearly shows
people seated at a table piled high with legal papers. It offers striking visual
support to the written complaints. And does not the very fact that such a print
should be exhibited for sale confirm that there was a considerable degree of
public support for such complaints?
Here, then, we have a mixture of description and of comment. How the
iconographer values the artist who portrayed accurately. Perhaps Sir George
Hayter comes close to that ideal as he had expressed a wish to be 'painter of
the history of his own time'. Moreover, we know that his 'Trial of Queen
Caroline' was commissioned by a member of parliament and that Hayter
had made a preliminary sketch. Very probably, therefore, this painting is
an accurate representation of those unique proceedings. In other instances,
of which my first picture is an example, it is possible to compare and contrast
other contemporary descriptive pictures of the same subject. Such comparisons
are useful also in relation to the picture as comment. For example, magistrates
appear to be portrayed as lame as often as lawyers are portrayed as being
on friendly terms with the Devil. Clearly the tasks of assessment and of
interpretation of the very many prints and, I hope, paintings will be a
formidable task. In undertaking to begin that task I draw comfort from the
fact that I shall be able to draw upon European experience.
//. The Netherlands
M.A. Becker-Moelands
When in 1967 some legal historians in the Netherlands founded the Dutch
Centre for the Documentation of Legal History, 8 the collecting of material in
the field of legal iconography became one of their tasks. 9 They started what
was for the Netherlands an almost new field of interest, initiated more than
8
In 1988 the name was changed to the Dutch Centre for the Documentation of Legal History and
Legal Iconography.
9
The range of the collection is wider than that of the English project. We also collect, for example,
images of Justice, pictures concerning tax law, private law, public law, illustrated title-pages of law books
and pictures of juridical legends and stories.