Albert Frederick Calvert — 'Westralia'

Leslie Ward ('Spy') presents the twenty-three-year-old mining promoter Albert Frederick Calvert in his signature chromolithograph style: three-quarter profile, full length, rendered with elegant economy against a pale ground. Calvert — who would ride the Western Australian gold-rush boom as publicist, author, and speculator — appears the very type of the confident City man: grey frock coat, silk top hat, waxed moustache, brown kid gloves, a cigarette pinched between the fingers, a malacca cane at the hip, and a gold field-bag slung over the shoulder, that last prop a pointed joke at his prospecting enthusiasms. The caption 'Westralia' locates the satire precisely in the speculative fever surrounding Western Australian gold, then drawing British investors in droves. The comedy is purely social — the brash young colonial promoter dressed as a West End gentleman.