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Henry Charles Howard, 19th Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire — 'Dover'

Liborio Prosperi · Vanity Fair, 31 December 1887

Henry Charles Howard, 19th Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire — 'Dover'
Signed by Lib (Liborio Prosperi, one of *Vanity Fair*'s lesser-known but accomplished staff caricaturists), this chromolithograph — plate 535 in the Statesmen series — depicts the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire in a side-profile pose characteristic of the magazine's formula. He wears a brown frock coat, buff breeches with button gaiters, a low-crowned bowler, and carries a field bag on a shoulder strap: the studied informality of landed authority at ease. The caption 'Dover' signals his role as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports or a local parliamentary connection. The caricature exaggerates his prominent nose and portly forward lean without the ethnic distortion the magazine applied to non-British subjects; this is gentle, clubbable mockery aimed squarely at its aristocratic readership.

Liborio Prosperi Public domain