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Daniel Lysons ('Dan'), Vanity Fair, 13 April 1878

Leslie Ward · Published in Vanity Fair, London, 13 April 1878

Daniel Lysons ('Dan'), Vanity Fair, 13 April 1878
Signed by Spy (Leslie Ward), this chromolithograph caricatures Major-General Sir Daniel Lysons KCB, labeled beneath simply as *'Dan'* — the familiar nickname signalling insider social recognition, a Vanity Fair convention for men of comfortable eminence. Ward renders Lysons in profile: tall hat, frock coat, a cane held loosely, gloves carried in the left hand. The face is the joke — an enormous hooked nose and sweeping white moustache dominate a shrunken chin, the physical exaggeration entirely within the gentlemanly, good-natured register Ward favored for military establishment figures. Lysons, Crimea veteran and Adjutant-General, is treated as a well-loved institution — formidable in career, gently absurd in person.

Leslie Ward Public domain