Puck to Victoria, R.

Louis Dalrymple drew this cover for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee: the magazine's mascot, a cherubic Puck in colonial-era costume, bows before an elderly Victoria enthroned and crowned, offering a bouquet tied with a ribbon reading 1837–1897. The lion-carved throne and ermine-trimmed robe signal imperial majesty; Victoria leans forward with scepter in hand to receive the tribute. The accompanying verse—"Upon this day of Jubilee / I make you my best bow"—frames the image as affectionate flattery rather than satire, unusual for Puck's typically barbed covers. The politics are Anglo-American warmth: the 1890s saw a studied rapprochement between the two nations, and the cartoon flatters Britain's monarch while positioning American wit as a charming, junior peer paying court.