Vanity Fair, Vol. 6, No. 148

Wood engraving cover from the American Vanity Fair, a New York weekly satirizing Union politics and personalities during the Civil War. The illustration depicts John Van Buren in caricatured form—a rotund figure with exaggerated mustache and prominent nose, adjusting his hair while clutching a hat. The caption notes his appearance "as he looks when got up for a 'telling' political speech." The masthead employs bold decorative letterforms typical of period comic journalism. Published by Ticknor & Fields of Boston, this issue exemplifies the paper's blend of political lampoon, comic verse, and theatrical portraiture that characterized American humor weeklies in the 1860s.