'Steam.' — Mr. F. A. Coleman

Spy presents Frederick Aberthy Coleman as the genial face of early British motoring. The chromolithograph caption reads "Steam." and identifies the sitter as Mr. F. A. Coleman—a devotee of steam-powered automobiles at a moment when petrol was winning the argument. Coleman is rendered in a long motoring duster coat, leather driving gloves, and a tweed cap pushed up to accommodate goggles—the full costume of the Edwardian road enthusiast. Ward's caricature exaggerates Coleman's considerable girth with affectionate comic proportion rather than malice, the standard Spy formula: one recognizable human trait inflated, everything else reduced to elegant shorthand. The plate belongs to a late run of Vanity Fair automobile subjects, reflecting Britain's uneasy romance with mechanical speed.