George Granville Leveson-Gower, 'My dear George'

Leslie Ward ('Spy') renders Leveson-Gower MP in characteristic three-quarter walking pose, leaning slightly forward with hands clasped behind his back, dressed in a dark frock coat and waistcoat with a watch-chain glinting at the pocket. The caption 'My dear George' suggests an affectionate familiarity — Leveson-Gower moved in Liberal inner circles close to Gladstone, and the salutation implies the easy intimacy of that parliamentary set. Ward's caricature exaggerates the subject's large, bulbous nose and ruddy colouring, deploying a grotesque head atop a trim body — a stock device Vanity Fair used across its 'Men of the Day' series.