Abe Bailey — 'Rhodes the Second'

Leslie Ward ('Spy') depicts Sir Abraham Bailey in a double-breasted navy suit, hands thrust behind his back, mustache clipped, expression self-possessed to the point of smugness. The caption — 'Rhodes the Second' — is the plate's entire argument: Bailey, South African mining magnate and imperialist financier, is cast as the natural heir to Cecil Rhodes, whose vision of British dominance over southern Africa Bailey bankrolled and promoted. Ward's mockery is expressed through the slight paunch, the oversized jacket, and the nouveau-riche swagger of a Rand millionaire playing statesman. Rhodes was admired in Edwardian London and already mythologized, so the label flatters Bailey's ambitions, yet it also reduces him to an understudy.