FINELY ETCHED PORTRAIT OF JAMES KENT, SIGNED BY ARTIST JAMES KING

KING, James, etcher. Etched portrait. New York: Charles Barmore, 1898. Sheet size 15 by 19 inches. $650.

Large portrait of influential New York jurist and legal commentator James Kent, signed by artist James King, with facsimile of Kent’s signature.

“Without Kent and Story, it is doubtful that the common law could have been received as readily as it was or that judicial decision could have taken over as the law’s growing point… Above all, the text writers and their affiliated law schools were a great unifying influence in American law” (Schwartz, 111). Kent’s Commentaries on American Law (1826-30) “contain not only a clear statement of the English law, with all the alterations that have taken place since the time of Blackstone, but a full account of the main principles of Equity, also, a review of the modifications engrafted on the English law by the different states of the Union… and on all important questions, an instructive parallel between the English, American, Modern Continental and Civil Laws” (Marvin, 438). As a student at LÉcole des Beaux Arts, New York-born artist James S. King studied with Gérome in his studio. He gained reputation as a portraitist, watercolorist and engraver (Benezit 6: 219).

A fine impression, signed by the artist.