ComicBook Experience

From the exhibition

Lord Revelstoke ('Barings')

Leslie Ward · Vanity Fair, 11 August 1898

Lord Revelstoke ('Barings')
Leslie Ward ('Spy') renders Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke, in profile against a flat grey ground — the house style that made these chromolithographs so instantly recognizable. The caption reads simply *'Barings'*, pointing to the dynasty rather than the man: Revelstoke was the partner whose reckless Argentine lending nearly collapsed Barings Bank in 1890, rescued only by a Bank of England–organized syndicate. Ward's caricature is cool, even flattering — a patrician figure in a double-breasted frock coat, one hand behind his back, radiating Establishment composure. The cartoon carries no ethnic exaggeration; the subject is Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, and Ward obliges with thin-lipped dignity. The subversion is entirely political: a financier who nearly broke the City, portrayed as though nothing happened.

Leslie Ward Public domain