C1874

“First Violin”

Artist:

Ape / Sir Leslie Ward (1851 - 1922)

$A 125

Vanity Fair caricature of of Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh, who reigned as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1893 to 1900. He was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria. Assassination attempt while in Sydney. On 12 … Read Full Description

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S/N: VF-740110-MUSIC–233136

(DRW04)

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Details

Full Title:

“First Violin”

Date:

C1874

Artist:

Ape / Sir Leslie Ward (1851 - 1922)

Condition:

In good condition.

Technique:

Lithograph printed in colour.

Image Size:

184mm

x 310mm

Paper Size:

255mm

x 360mm

Genuine antique
dated:

1874

Description:

Vanity Fair caricature of of Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh, who reigned as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1893 to 1900. He was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria.

Assassination attempt while in Sydney.

On 12 March 1868, on his second visit to Sydney, he was invited by Sir William Manning, President of the Sydney Sailors’ Home, to picnic at the beachfront suburb of Clontarf to raise funds for the home. At the function, he was wounded in the back by a revolver fired by Henry James O’Farrell. Alfred was shot just to the right of his spine and was tended for the next two weeks by six nurses, trained by Florence Nightingale and led by Matron Lucy Osburn, who had just arrived in Australia in February 1868. In the violent struggle during which Alfred was shot, William Vial had managed to wrest the gun away from O’Farrell until bystanders assisted. Vial, a master of a Masonic Lodge, had helped to organise the picnic in honour of the Duke’s visit and was presented with a gold watch for securing Alfred’s life. Another bystander, George Thorne, was wounded in the foot by O’Farrell’s second shot. O’Farrell was arrested at the scene, quickly tried, convicted and hanged on 21 April 1868.

From the original edition of Vanity Fair.

Biography:

Leslie Matthew Ward (1851-1922)

Ward was a British portrait artist and caricaturist who over four decades painted 1,325 portraits which were regularly published by Vanity Fair under their pseudonyms.

Such was his influence in the genre that all Vanity Fair caricatures are sometimes referred to as “Spy Cartoons” regardless of who the artist actually was. Early portraits, almost always full-length (judges at the bench being the main exception), had a stronger element of caricature and usually distorted the proportions of the body, with a very large head and upper body supported on much smaller lower parts. Later, as he became socially accepted in the society in which he moved to gain access to his subjects, and not wishing to cause offence, his style developed into what he called ‘characteristic portraits’, being less of a caricature and more of an actual portrait of the subject, using realistic body proportions.