Australian Cricket, George Bonnor, Vanity Fair caricature print.

$18.00

"a most excellent specimen of the Great Briton”, George Bonner, Australian cricketer.

Reproduction from a Vanity Fair lithograph printed in colour circa 1884 from a caricature by “Ape” Carlo Pellegrini (1839-1889) for ‘Men of the Day’ noteworthy personages who featured in the weekly London periodical “Vanity Fair”.

Accompanying text stated “His father was from Herefordshire, his Mother was from Lancashire, and he was born eight-and-twenty years ago at Bathurst in New South Wales. He was sent to school and he went into the Bush, attached himself to sheep-farming and learnt to shoot, to ride, and to run, and has now come back to his Mother-country to represent Australian cricket as one of the Australian Eleven. He is a quiet, amiable, low-voiced, comely giant, standing six feet six in his boots, measuring forty-five inches round the chest, and weighing seventeen stone all but two pounds. He has thrown the cricket-ball 129 yards. He can bowl very fast indeed and is a very hard-hitter. He is a fine runner too, and is the hundred yards champion of New South Wales. He is neither a smoker nor a drinker, he is gentle and good-humoured, and is altogether a most excellent specimen of the Greater Briton.”

Print approximately 19 x 33cm.