Baron Hermann von Eckardstein, 'A German Attaché'

Ward's full-length plate shows Eckardstein — German attaché at the London embassy and well-connected figure in Anglo-German diplomatic circles — in white-tie evening dress, one hand in his pocket, the other raised holding a cigar with the easy confidence of a man at home in Mayfair drawing-rooms. A gold watch-chain curves across the waistcoat. The caption reads simply 'A German attaché.' The mild caricature is limited to a slight heaviness of frame and an air of patrician self-satisfaction. The political subtext is the fraught Anglo-German relationship of the late 1890s — Eckardstein was actively courting British aristocratic opinion at the very moment the two powers were drifting toward imperial rivalry.