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From the exhibition

Lord Elcho ('Derby Day'), Vanity Fair, 26 March 1892

Leslie Ward · Chromolithograph, 1892, by Leslie Ward ('Spy')

Lord Elcho ('Derby Day'), Vanity Fair, 26 March 1892
Spy's plate depicts Hugo Richard Charteris, Lord Elcho — later 11th Earl of Wemyss — in the full dress of a Jockey Club grandee: black morning coat, white waistcoat, bow tie, gold watch-chain, and a white flower in his buttonhole. He holds a folded race-card or handkerchief, one hand pocketed, his gaze lifted with patrician detachment. The caption 'Derby Day' plants him squarely at Epsom, the great social ritual of the English ruling class. Ward's caricature is gentle rather than biting — the slightly enlarged bald dome and elongated silhouette are the only liberties taken — befitting a young aristocrat whose political career was still forming. Published by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, lithographers to the Crown.

Leslie Ward Public domain