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Tom Brady’s courtroom sketch becomes an instant meme

Hail to the courtroom sketch artist who later said she tends not to flatter people with her drawings.

Photo of Josh Katzowitz 

Josh Katzowitz

Internet Culture

Posted on Aug 12, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 4:22 am CDT

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and the NFL met in court Wednesday as Judge Richard M. Berman questioned both parties about #DeflateGate and seemingly tried prodding them toward an out-of-court settlement. Since cameras were not allowed in the courtroom, we had to rely on a sketch artist to set the scene for us.

Apparently, that courtroom artist was early 20th-century Austrian painter Egon Schiele.

That’s not true. The sketch artist working Wednesday actually is named Jane Rosenberg. This is how she saw Brady.

Jane Rosenberg

And this was how she viewed NFL commissioner Roger Goodell—the man who’s second from the left and who actually looks like this and not a middle-aged man who’s trying to sell you a used Honda Accord.

Jim Armstrong/Twitter

As for Rosenberg’s reaction to her viral work, she offered the New York Times‘s Daniel Victor a quick, half-serious apology: “I apologize to Tom Brady for not making him as good-looking as he is,” she said.

Added Rosenberg to the Boston Globe: “I don’t tend to flatter people and make them look beautiful… At least they can figure out which one is Tom Brady. That’s good, whether he looks good or bad. It’s not just a stick figure of a nobody.”

As for others’ reactions.

https://twitter.com/patrickhedlund/status/631534566407335941

https://twitter.com/crushingbort/status/631534481648713728

All jokes aside, Rosenberg has her own website which you can view right here. Her paintings are actually quite pretty.

Photo via Jane Rosenberg

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*First Published: Aug 12, 2015, 8:46 pm CDT

Josh Katzowitz

Josh Katzowitz is a staff writer at the Daily Dot specializing in YouTube and boxing. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. A longtime sports writer, he's covered the NFL for CBSSports.com and boxing for Forbes. His work has been noted twice in the Best American Sports Writing book series.

Josh Katzowitz