Sir Edward Malet – 'Justice! Justice! Justice!'

Spy (Leslie Ward) renders the British diplomat Sir Edward Malet (1837–1908) in full-length profile, dressed in a dark frock coat with a pocket square and wing collar, one hand tucked behind his back, the other holding a smouldering cigarette. The caption — 'Justice! Justice! Justice!' — alludes to Malet's role in the Egyptian Crisis of 1882, when as Consul-General in Cairo he pressed urgently for international intervention against Arabi Pasha's nationalist government. The pose is studied and self-possessed, the caricature gentle: Ward slightly enlarges the nose and broadens the shoulders but stops well short of ethnic distortion. The cigarette and easy stance code Malet as a clubman-diplomat, a man of drawing-rooms as much as despatches.