Solicitor and Client

Charles Samuel Keene · 1870/91

Medium

Pen and brown ink, with touches of white gouache, on cream wove paper, laid down on ivory wove paper

Original size

16.5 × 24.1 cm (6 1/2 × 9 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

Solicitor and Client captures the quiet theatre of Victorian professional life through Charles Samuel Keene's characteristically spare, observational line — two figures locked in the familiar tension of legal counsel, rendered with economy and wit. Keene spent four decades as one of Punch magazine's most celebrated draughtsmen, contributing from 1851 until his death in 1891. Working primarily in pen and ink, he had an exceptional gift for conveying character through posture and gesture rather than elaborate background detail. This piece — executed in pen and brown ink with restrained touches of white gouache — demonstrates his instinct for the telling moment: the solicitor leaning in, the client's bearing caught between deference and unease. Keene was quietly revered among his peers; both Whistler and Degas admired his draftsmanship, and Degas reportedly called him one of the greatest artists of the age — an endorsement rarely discussed outside specialist circles. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Keene's delicate ink work into a medium that gives the scene warmth and presence without betraying its origins. The tonal subtlety of the original — those soft brown washes, the restrained use of white — is honoured stroke by stroke, making this a fitting tribute to one of the Victorian era's most underappreciated draughtsmen.