Artist responds after image of Ghislaine Maxwell sketching her back goes viral

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The New York artist, whose drawing of Ghislaine Maxwell drawing her during her trial went viral, has said the socialite has sketched her “a few times in a row.”

Speaking to the Intelligencer, Jane Rosenberg spoke about the image that has captured the imagination of people and said: “In the pretrials in that little courtroom, that’s when the sketching started. She sketched me a few times in a row.”

Ms Rosenberg also revealed that “she (Maxwell) started nodding at me and waving at me. She even spoke to me once. It’s really great for me. I’m not going to wreck it. I’m going to keep it going. I need to see her face. It’s like a photographer — they wait for that moment and say someone’s name and they turn to them. That’s the same thing.”

The drawing shows Ms Maxwell looking straight at the artist, with a blank expression while doodling on a notepad in front of her in the courtroom during the trial.

Social media was amazed at the bizarre image, with several people saying that Ms Maxwell was mocking the artist.

Ms Rosenberg told Newsweek that she had interacted with the defendant during the trial on a number of occasions.

During the interview when she was asked why the image captured social media or could it possibly be the eye contact between the two, Ms Rosenberg responded: “I just heard last night it went viral on Twitter. I don’t do Twitter. It’s a few weeks old, that sketch. So whatever!”

The artist also revealed that this was not the first time she was being drawn by someone else in the courtroom. She said that “the last time was recent — a co-defendant in the Lev Parnas trial was sketching me.”

Ms Rosenberg also said that 35 years ago, Eddie Murphy had sketched her on a little Post-it. “He gave me the sketch. It’s somewhere in my apartment, buried. I wonder if I could find it.”

In her 35-year-long career she has drawn Mark David Chapman, El Chapo, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Anthony Weiner.

She used to draw portraits on the beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts and recreated Rembrandts and Vermeers on the sidewalk with pastels on Fifth Avenue near the Central Park Zoo. One day, she told the Inside Hook, she saw court artist Marilyn Church speak at the Society of Illustrators in New York. And that is when “I looked in the mirror and when I came home I said, ‘I’m gonna do this.’”

“It feels good when somebody needs me and wants me and calls me and says ‘Jane, go now’ and make some money and I’m paid for drawing people. I love doing that. It’s just fun,” she told Inside Hook last year.

Now, she says that “there were days I did seven or eight (sketches). I can be working on one sketch and suddenly something else will happen and I’ll switch papers.” She revealed that when during the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, when that massage table was brought out for the jury to look at, “I sketched that scene — suddenly, they opened the table up. I thought it was more important to show the table open.”

Prosecutors have alleged that 59-year-old Ms Maxwell used to prey on girls and groom them for convicted paedophile and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.