“Benevolence on the Bench”, ‘Spy’ Vanity Fair caricature.
$185.00
Legal caricature of the Honourable Sir Alfred Wills. "He is not a great Judge; but he is a good one. He looks the man that he is."
Original lithograph printed in colour c1902 by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son for Vanity Fair "Men of the Day" from the caricature by “Spy”, the pseudonym of Leslie Ward (1851-1922). Sir Leslie Ward (knighted in 1918) was a prolific and popular caricaturist.
In 1868 Thomas Gibson Bowles (1842-1922) founded the Vanity Fair magazine of social comment, with eight to ten pages each issue. Writing most of the regular editorial under various pseudonyms, Bowles's indiscriminate provocative and disarmingly fearless attitude gained a wide audience – and was beneficial to him during his later political career. Vanity Fair was immensely popular from 1869 until it ceased publication in 1914 – because of the inclusion each week of one amusing lithographic caricature, parodying any newsworthy personage. Bowles considered the caricatures to be “grim faces made more grim, grotesque figures made more grotesque, and dull people made duller". While it became a point of pride with some to be the victim of one of the magazine's artists, the caricatures were often responsible for the reputation of these hapless individuals. The most important artists were Carlo Pellegrini, Leslie Ward, James Tissot and Alfred Thompson.
Page size is approximately 35 x 23cm (13.75 x 9 inches). Colour-printed image size is 230 x 190mm (9 x 7.5 inches)
