WHO are the men of today? Are they golfers, politicians, explorers? Newspaper editors, perhaps, or huntsmen? This is who they were in the late 19th century and many were immortalised—or rather, caricatured—and published on the pages of Society magazine Vanity Fair.
There have been at least five separate magazines called Vanity Fair, but this iteration, the second, was first published by Thomas Gibson Bowles in 1868, its aim to expose the vanities of human existence. Today, it’s best known for its caricatures with clever captions—in 1870, Lord Halifax’s read ‘he fell off his horse into a peerage’. The first, of Benjamin Disraeli, was published in 1869, drawn by Carlo Pellegrini, known as Ape. Gladstone was next, before various men (and a few women) of distinction followed. By the time the magazine closed in 1914, the list had expanded to criminals, actors and Americans. In 1873, the artist best associated with the caricatures, Sir Leslie Ward, drawing as Spy, began working for Bowles.
Potential subjects were initially reluctant to be portrayed in Vanity Fair. ‘At the beginning, when Ape was doing these sketches, people were a little upset,’ notes Roy T. Matthews, co-author with Peter Mellini of In Vanity Fair. Attitudes changed and soon it was ‘considered something of a coup’ to be in the magazine, notes Mr Matthews.
Some, such as Lewis Carroll, begged to be excused, however. ‘Nothing would be more unpleasant for me than to have my face known to strangers,’ he wrote in his diary. Anthony Trollope was unhappy with his 1873 depiction; later, James Pope-Hennessy wrote that, in his caricature, Trollope looked like ‘an affronted Santa Claus who has just lost his reindeer’.
Denne historien er fra January 22, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 22, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds