Dr Robert Henry Scanes Spicer

Ward's plate presents Dr Robert Henry Scanes Spicer — a prominent London laryngologist — in the characteristic Spy formula: full-length, three-quarter pose, hands thrust into coat pockets, feet planted wide. He wears a dark frock coat thrown open over a patterned waistcoat with watch-chain, grey trousers, and polished shoes. Pince-nez and a neatly trimmed goatee supply the professional man's dignity. The caricature is mild in its distortions — a slightly thickened torso, a faint smugness of bearing — reflecting Vanity Fair's tendency to flatter medical and scientific subjects rather than lampoon them. The image signals respectable Edwardian expertise: a specialist whose social ascent the magazine deemed worth recording for its clubland readership.