later copyright of reproductions by the artist. It is therefore unwise for an artist to sell the original of a work of art without affixing to it the required copyright notice and depositing one copy of an identifying photograph or print.
Early Eng-
lish decisionThe leading case under English law as to exhibition is that of Turner v. Robinson in the Irish Court of Chancery in 1860, previous to the passage of the act of 1862 which first provided statutory copyright for paintings, and interpretative therefore of common law. Turner's "Death of Chatterton" had been reproduced in a magazine and exhibited at the Royal Academy and in Manchester, and was thereafter exhibited for the purpose of obtaining subscriptions for an engraving, in Dublin, where a photographer copied it and published a stereoscopic reproduction. The Master of the Rolls held that the painting had never been published because the exhibitions were on condition that no copies should be made, and the engraving in the magazine was only a rough representation and not a publication of the picture. The Court of Appeal also held against the defendant, but because of his breach of contract, and declined to decide whether there had been publication in London or Manchester. The Lord Chancellor, however, expressed the opinion that exhibition at the Academy, though conditioned, was publication, though a private view in a studio, rather than a picture gallery would not be. The Court of Appeal did not pass on the further opinion of the Master of the Rolls that the publication of a print was not publication of the picture. These confusing opinions left the question in very misty shape and the most important interpretation of English practice has come from an American court.
The latest and leading case as to exhibition is that of Werckmeister v. American Lithograph Co.,
