About the artist:

Sir Leslie Matthew Ward (21 November 1851 – 15 May 1922), was a British portrait artist and caricaturist who drew or painted numerous portraits which were regularly published by Vanity Fair, under the pseudonym "Spy". Ward drew 1,325 cartoons for Vanity Fair between 1873 and 1911, many of which captured the personality of his subjects. His portraits of royalty, nobility, and women, however, were over-sympathetic, if not sycophantic. Later, as he became a member of Society himself, he became even more of a complimentary portraitist, moving from caricature to what he termed "characteristic portraits', a charge he acknowledged in his autobiography Forty Years of 'Spy', published in 1915. Ward worked methodically, often from memory, after observing his ‘victims’ at the racecourse, in the law courts, in church, in the university lecture theatre, or in the lobby of the Houses of Parliament. Sometimes they came to his studio to pose in their robes or uniforms. A caricaturist, Ward believed, was born, not made. He observed, ‘A good memory, an eye for detail, and a mind to appreciate and grasp the whole atmosphere and peculiarity of the “subject” are of course essentials'. A caricature, he noted, should never depend on a physical defect, nor should it be forced. ‘If I could sum up the art in a sentence it would be that caricature should be a comic impression with a kindly touch, and always devoid of vulgarity’. In an 1897 interview given by Oliver Armstrong Fry (editor of Vanity Fair) to Frank Banfield of Cassell's Magazine, it was reported that Ward received a sum of between £300 and £400 for a portrait. Ward was the most famous Vanity Fair artist; indeed, the whole genre tends to be named after him, the caricatures often being referred to as 'Spy Cartoons'. He worked for Vanity Fair for over forty years, producing more than half of the 2,387 caricatures published. Ward's Clubs included the Arts, the Orleans, the Fielding, the Lotus, the Punch Bowl, and the Beefsteak, where he was one of the original members. There he sketched many of his victims. In 1899, years after her father had refused him permission to marry her, Ward married the Society hostess Judith Mary Topham-Watney, the only daughter of Major Richard Topham of the 4th Queen's Own Hussars. They had one daughter, Sidney. Ward's last cartoon for Vanity Fair appeared in June 1911 as he had recently begun to contribute his ‘characteristic portraits' to The World and Mayfair. He supplemented his income by painting portraits. In 1918 he was knighted. Ward prophesied that ‘...when the history of the Victorian Era comes to be written in true perspective, the most faithful mirror and record of representative men and spirit of their times will be sought and found in Vanity Fair’. After a nervous breakdown Ward died suddenly of heart failure at 4 Dorset Square, Marylebone, London on 15 May 1922 and was buried on 18 May at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. About 300 of his original drawings for Vanity Fair are in the National Portrait Gallery, London.