'Greece' — King George I of Greece
Leslie Ward · Vanity Fair, 21 October 1876. Chromolithograph by Leslie Ward ('Spy').
Ward's caricature presents King George I — born Danish prince Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, elected to the Greek throne in 1863 — as a lanky English gentleman rather than a Mediterranean monarch. The figure wears a black frock coat, grey trousers, and a tall silk hat, carrying a slender cane with casual authority. The caption reads simply 'Greece', the magazine's habitual shorthand for political territory. Ward exaggerates the King's narrow, angular frame and ginger moustache, playing on his conspicuously Northern European appearance — an irony inherent in Greece's imported, Protestant dynasty ruling an Orthodox kingdom. The joke is dynastic incongruity rendered as Pall Mall nonchalance.
About this artifact
- Creator
- Leslie Ward
- Date
- Vanity Fair, 21 October 1876. Chromolithograph by Leslie Ward ('Spy').
- Rights
- Public domain — free to view, share, and reuse.
- Restoration
- Digitally restored and hosted by ComicBooks.com.
Part of our mission to preserve and restore the public-domain heritage of the medium.