'The Speaker' — John George Dodson, 1st Baron Monk Bretton

Tissot's chromolithograph presents Dodson — then Chairman of Ways and Means in the Commons — behind an ornate Gothic-detailed bench, arms folded, rendered in the exaggerated proportions typical of Vanity Fair's 'Men of the Day' series: enlarged bald cranium, prominent jowls, and a slightly smug half-smile conveying parliamentary self-satisfaction. Books and an hourglass flank him, stock emblems of juridical authority and the passage of legislative time. The plate gently mocks Whig administrative solemnity rather than attacking any policy position, consistent with Vanity Fair's commercial preference for flattering the powerful while appearing to satirise them.