George Higginson Allsopp, 'Beer'

Signed by Liborio Prosperi under his pseudonym Lib, this chromolithograph caricatures the Hon. George Higginson Allsopp, Conservative M.P. and scion of the Burton brewing dynasty, under the caption 'beer' — a one-word joke at the family trade. Prosperi renders Allsopp in profile as a prosperous, rotund figure in a tan lounge suit and bowler hat, carrying a walking stick and wearing a satchel or field glass case across his chest. The prominent belly and heavy jowls are affectionate rather than savage: Allsopp was no political villain, merely a brewing interest in Parliament. The caricature gently satirises the era's tied-trade debates — licensing reform threatened fortunes like the Allsopps' — by reducing a legislator to his commercial identity.