Court Scene 

Jean-Louis Forain made this work, Court Scene, using pen and ink with watercolor. It depicts a trial. Forain spent much of his career as a satirical cartoonist, and his sympathies in such drawings often lay with the poor and downtrodden. His images, which document the Third Republic in France, often comment on the social structures of his time. We see the somber courtroom populated by figures on both sides of the law. On the left we see a woman weeping, perhaps the defendant or the relative of the convicted. In the center we see a mass of figures with hats, who seem to be journalists or court sketchers who are watching the drama unfold. Historians consult court records and newspaper archives to better understand the context of such images. We learn that the administration of justice is never truly blind. It is always contingent on social and institutional contexts.