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From the exhibition

Reginald Sackville, 7th Earl De La Warr — "Jour de ma vie"

Leslie Ward · Vanity Fair, 30 August 1879

Reginald Sackville, 7th Earl De La Warr — "Jour de ma vie"
Spy (Leslie Ward) renders the 7th Earl De La Warr in sharp profile: a lean, elongated figure in a double-breasted dark suit and peaked naval-style cap, one hand thrust behind his back, chin jutting forward with an air of patrician self-satisfaction. The caption — 'Jour de ma vie,' a French exclamation of pleased surprise — underscores the mild satirical joke: here is an English aristocrat whose life has been, presumably, one long agreeable day. The caricature exaggerates the Earl's angular nose and slight stoop without ethnic distortion; the comedy is purely social, aimed at the comfortable hauteur of the landed peerage. Ward's economy of line captures a man who takes his own consequence entirely for granted.

Leslie Ward Public domain