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HomeVanity Fair: Men of the DayMen of the Day: The Vanity Fair Caricatures › 'The Maharajah' — Duleep Singh, Vanity Fair, 18 November 1882
'The Maharajah' — Duleep Singh, Vanity Fair, 18 November 1882 by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son after Sir Leslie Ward
Public domain · digitally restored by ComicBooks.com
Men of the Day: The Vanity Fair Caricatures

'The Maharajah' — Duleep Singh, Vanity Fair, 18 November 1882

Vincent Brooks, Day & Son after Sir Leslie Ward · Published 18 November 1882; chromolithograph by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son after Sir Leslie Ward ('Spy'); No. 266 in the 'Men of the Day' series

Ward's caricature presents Duleep Singh — last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, deposed at ten by the East India Company and long resident in England — as a prosperous gentleman: rotund, balding, in a brown frock coat and white waistcoat, cigarette dangling from his lips, a signet ring on his right hand. The caption reads simply 'the Maharajah.' The figure is physically exaggerated in the standard Vanity Fair mode — bulk and baldness amplified — but Ward renders Singh in English dress without South Asian regalia. By 1882 Singh was receiving a Crown pension and had been effectively removed from political influence, his Punjab patrimony stripped. The cartoon combines flattery with diminishment through its formal treatment.

About this artifact

Creator
Vincent Brooks, Day & Son after Sir Leslie Ward
Date
Published 18 November 1882; chromolithograph by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son after Sir Leslie Ward ('Spy'); No. 266 in the 'Men of the Day' series
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.