Exhibitions

The Library's exhibition program, coordinated by Historical & Special Collections, advertises the scholarly resources available to the academic community with an immediacy that cannot be experienced in any other way—a medieval manuscript, the first edition of Littleton's Tenures, a student notebook recording Professor Langdell's lectures—all evoke the time in which they were created and give richness to the history of the law and of the Harvard Law School.

HSC's exhibits are located in the Caspersen Room, located at the north end of the Langdell Reading Room. Hours are generally 9:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday (closed for special events).

Current Exhibition 

Provenance Detectives: Revealing the History of Six Library Artifacts. This exhibit highlights six artifacts chosen for their fascinating and sometimes mysterious provenance, as well as their ability to illustrate the different paths provenance research takes. Artifacts featured in the exhibit include: a fourteenth century Magna Carta; furniture used by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; and a painting of Justice John Marshall by eminent portrait artist Chester Harding.

Past Exhibitions 

Library exhibitions have featured a wide range of materials from law books in fancy dress to crime broadsides to legal portraits. See Historical & Special Collections' index of past exhibitions for more information.

Eight persons murdered! [London] : J. Catnach, Printer, [between 1836 and 1841] (detail).