Farrer Herschell, 'The Solicitor-General'

Leslie Ward ('Spy') presents Farrer Herschell QC MP in profile, standing with one hand tucked behind his back, wearing a dark frock coat, grey trousers, and a tall silk top hat — the uniform of Victorian professional eminence. The caption reads 'the Solicitor-General.' Herschell, a Liberal barrister who would become Lord Chancellor under Gladstone, is rendered with the exaggerated nose and receding chin typical of Spy's chromolithograph style; such facial emphasis carried antisemitic freight in 1881 caricature, when Jewish public figures were routinely drawn to emphasise presumed ethnic physiognomy. The plate is Statesmen No. 353, marking Herschell's arrival at high legal office — and, implicitly, the anxious scrutiny that arrival invited.