At the Justice of the Peace

Pieter Verhaert · 1878

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

28.3 × 35.1 cm (11 1/8 × 13 3/16 in.); Framed: 40.7 × 46.4 × 3.9 cm (16 × 18 1/4 × 1 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

Pieter Verhaert's 1878 genre scene draws you into a quietly tense moment — ordinary Flemish citizens gathered before a local magistrate, their postures and expressions telling the whole story without a word of explanation. Verhaert was a Belgian painter trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and he dedicated much of his career to documenting the everyday lives of working-class and rural people. His figures are observed rather than idealised — the creased clothing, the mix of deference and anxiety in the room, the magistrate's comfortable authority. That close attention to social dynamic and material detail puts Verhaert firmly in the tradition of Flemish realist genre painting that stretches back centuries, though his work is unmistakably rooted in his own era. The painting has been held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, where its naturalistic palette and strong compositional storytelling have continued to draw interest from scholars of 19th-century European genre painting. A skilled hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas faithfully recreates the warm tones, layered brushwork, and human drama of the original — giving you a work that holds the same visual weight and storytelling depth as the piece hanging in Chicago.