ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Leslie Ward ('Spy'), 'Mr. Hargreaves,' Vanity Fair, 11 June 1887

Leslie Ward · Chromolithograph, 11 June 1887

Leslie Ward ('Spy'), 'Mr. Hargreaves,' Vanity Fair, 11 June 1887
Spy renders Colonel John Hargreaves in full fox-hunting fig: scarlet coat with brass buttons, buff breeches, pink-topped black riding boots, and a hard velvet cap. He holds a hunting horn and crop behind his back, viewed in the characteristic three-quarter profile that Ward made his signature. The caption reads simply *Mr. Hargreaves*. The plate carries no ethnic caricature; Ward's comic exaggeration is physical and social — the barrel chest, ginger beard, and slightly pompous bearing gently mock the English county squirearchy's self-serious devotion to the chase. The image flatters as much as it teases, placing Hargreaves firmly within the landed sporting establishment Vanity Fair simultaneously celebrated and satirized.

Leslie Ward CC0