‘Defendant and Counsel’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895 and enjoyed immediate notoriety. Visitors were desperate to know what exactly the lady had done. Cassell & Co. took the matter up, offering a guinea prize for the best solution. William Yeames himself judged the entries, which had the lady involved in cases ranging from divorce to murder. Yeames is said to have claimed that he had only pictorial effect in mind but he ultimately responded to persistent enquiries: 'I beg to say that the scene of my picture of "Defendant and Counsel" is supposed to take place in one of the consulting rooms attached to a court of law, where counsel and clients meet at intervals to discuss how the case should be carried on. My only idea when painting the picture was to depict the eagerness of counsel to obtain, from the lady defendant, information on a point on which the defence depended and the unwillingness of the lady to enlighten them lest, by doing so, she should compromise a friend of hers.