Charles Napier Sturt ('A Younger Son')

Spy's chromolithograph of Colonel Charles Napier Sturt, younger brother of Lord Alington, runs as Men of the Day No. 142. Ward renders him mid-stride in full Victorian evening dress — black frock coat, white waistcoat and cravat, top hat — holding a cigar with casual patrician ease, the monogram 'NS' marking his coat-tail. The caption 'a younger son' is the entire editorial argument: Sturt is defined entirely by birth order, a figure of Society rather than achievement, his distinction borrowed from a title he will never hold. Ward's line is affectionate rather than savage — the ruddy mutton-chop whiskers lightly exaggerated, the posture confident — a portrait of comfortable irrelevance that Vanity Fair's upper-class readership would have recognised and enjoyed at their own expense.