ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

'Rupert' — Hon. Rupert Guinness

Leslie Ward · 9 November 1905

'Rupert' — Hon. Rupert Guinness
Leslie Ward ('Spy') presents Rupert Edward Cecil Lee Guinness — heir to the great brewing fortune and future 2nd Earl of Iveagh — seated squarely in a wooden chair in full Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve dress uniform: double-breasted dark navy, gold sleeve braid, medal ribbons, and a peaked white-top officer's cap. The caption below reads *'Rupert' (Hon. Rupert Guinness)*. Ward's caricature is affectionate rather than cutting — the sitter's considerable girth is acknowledged without malice, the ruddy, well-fed face turned in a mild three-quarter smile. No ethnic caricature operates here. The plate flatters a wealthy, well-connected young man whom Edwardian society regarded as a model of patrician public service, his naval role lending democratic respectability to inherited beer millions.

Leslie Ward Public domain