Colonel Barrington Foote, 'Military Music'

Leslie Ward ('Spy') caricatures Colonel F. O. Barrington Foote (1850–1911), Principal of the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall, in a full-length chromolithograph that is more portrait than grotesque. The figure wears dark blue undress uniform with a scarlet collar and trouser-stripe, gold buttons, and a small ribbon bar at the chest. He holds what appears to be a cigarette in his left hand—an easy, civilian touch that softens the military bearing. Ward's characteristic mild exaggeration settles on the white-crowned head and clipped moustache. The caption 'Military Music' identifies Foote's institutional role, placing this plate among Spy's many respectful, affectionate studies of senior officers rather than his sharper satirical work.