William Thackeray Marriott, 'Brighton'

Signed with the monogram T. for Théobald Chartran, this chromolithograph caricatures William Thackeray Marriott — barrister, Queen's Counsel, and Conservative MP for Brighton — beneath the single-word caption "Brighton." Chartran renders him as a stout, self-satisfied figure in a grey lounge suit, hands thrust into his trouser pockets, chin tilted upward with the mild complacency of a man well settled in his constituency. The caricature's mild corporeal mockery — the thickened torso, the reddish goatee and moustache — is typical of Vanity Fair's gentlemanly ribbing of establishment lawyers who had crossed into politics. Marriott's political career was respectable rather than distinguished, making Brighton his primary claim on the public imagination.