A study for the large cartoon executed in Paris, 1844, for the Westminster Hall Competition for the decoration in the Houses of Parliament in 1845. The final mural decoration in the Houses of Parliament was destroyed during World War II.
Stephens, F. G., Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Seeley and Co., London, 1894, page 11 Hueffer, Ford Madox, Ford Madox Brown, A Record of His Life and Work, Longman's, Green and Co., London, 1896, page 33-35: "This cartoon of The Spirit of Justice represents a widow, whose husband has been murdered by a knight, appealing to the Spirit of Justice who, blinded and seated on high with scales and sword, is surrounded by reverend concilors. The knightly murderer, in the meanwhile, stands fully armed, and, although surrounded by followers, seems to be depressed, as if realising that neither weapon nor power will avail him in the presence in which he stands", and pages 51 and 433 Doughty, Oswald and Wahl, John Roberts (editors), Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1965, Volume I, page 36, A Letter from Rossetti to Madox Brown, March 1848