Leslie Ward ('Spy'), 'Ethel' — Mr Raymond Broadley Etherington-Smith

Ward's chromolithograph presents Etherington-Smith — nicknamed 'Ethel,' a schoolboy diminutive of his surname — in full rowing kit: white shorts and jersey trimmed with red frilling at collar and cuffs, scarlet knee-socks, and brown oxfords. He holds a wooden oar diagonally across the composition and sets one hand on his hip, projecting athletic ease. The dock or pontoon beneath him anchors him in his sporting world. The caption 'Ethel.' delivers the plate's quiet joke: a hyper-masculine Cambridge and Leander oarsman saddled with an emphatically feminine nickname. The likeness is respectful rather than grotesque — typical of Ward's treatment of gentlemen-athletes whom Vanity Fair celebrated rather than satirised.