'Persia': Muzaffer-ed-din, Shah of Persia

Ward's chromolithograph presents the Qajar Shah in full-dress military black, his posture studiedly imperial: one hand twirls an enormous waxed moustache—the caricature's dominant comic device—while the other rests on a scabbarded sword. He wears a jewelled Persian lambswool hat with egret plume, the pale-blue sash of a high order, and a sunburst decoration. The caption reads simply 'Persia'. The regalia is rendered with genuine precision, reflecting Muzaffer-ed-din's 1902 state visit to London, which Vanity Fair treated as topical.