Lord Loreburn

Signed by the caricaturist 'Owl' — one of Vanity Fair's later, lesser-known contributors — this chromolithograph presents Sir Robert Threshie Reid, 1st Earl Loreburn, Lord Chancellor under Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith. The caption reads simply 'Loreburn'; the footer identifies him as 'Sir Robert Threshie Reid, Kt.' The composition is a close bust portrait: a heavy-jowled, white-haired man in a brown suit with a broad blue bow-tie, rendered with restrained sympathy rather than savage distortion. The politics are implicit: Loreburn was a Liberal imperialist turned fierce opponent of aggressive foreign policy, resigning in 1912 partly over naval expansion — a quietly dissenting figure whose solid, immovable face here suggests precisely that stubborn independence.