Vanity Fair Caricature, Rev. Edgar Sheppard "A Great Marrier" by Spy

This lithograph is presented in a mat and backing, which is protective, but not intended for framing. The text page describing the subject of the caricature portrait is included. The sheet and text page are attached to the backing with archival tape. The mat measures: 18.88" x 13" and the sheet measures: 15.13" x 10.5".

From 1868 until February 5, 1914, Vanity Fair, a weekly magazine of social, literary and political content, was very popular in Victorian and later, Edwardian England. The most popular of its features were the full page caricatures of famous men and women of the day which included their biographies, which remains the magazines lasting legacy. Vanity Fair's most famous artists were Carlo Pellegrini who signed his works “Ape” and Leslie Ward, known as “Spy”, but many other artists and writers contributed caricatures and prose to the publication, including Lewis Carroll, Willie Wilde, P. G. Wodehouse, Jessie Pope and Bertram Fletcher Robinson.

Thomas Gibson Bowles was the founder, owner, and editor of the magazine until 1889. He described the images as "grim faces made more grim, grotesque figures made more grotesque, and dull people made duller by the genius of our talented collaborator 'Ape'; but there is nothing that has been treated with a set purpose to make it something that it was not already originally in a lesser degree."