'Historic Art' — Men of the Day, No. 74

Signed by Spy (Leslie Ward) and published in Vanity Fair as plate No. 268, this chromolithograph caricatures Mr. G. W. Ward under the caption "Historic Art." Ward is rendered in three-quarter profile, corpulent and self-possessed, his dark frock coat straining slightly at the middle, grey trousers neatly creased, a watch-chain looped across his waistcoat. The exaggerated jowls and heavy brow — hallmarks of Spy's method — signal pomposity rather than malice; the figure clutches his lapel with the studied ease of a man accustomed to institutional authority. The subtitle Men of the Day situates him among the period's cultural establishment. No ethnic caricature is present. The plate is a deft social comedy: the art-world insider rendered, gently but unmistakably, as monument to his own importance.