Cuthbert “CB” Bradley for Vanity Fair Magazine
‘A Judge’: The Rev Cecil Legard
11 July 1901
Lithograph
21 x 37 cm
CB’s cartoon depicts The Rev Cecil Legard (1843-1918), the Rector of Cottesbrooke and heir to the baronetcy. As well as a clergyman, Legard was a noted sportsman and hound expert; he was a steeplechase rider, and also edited the Foxhound Kennel Stud Book. CB depicts him judging hounds, excellently outfitted; as the biography on the reverse of the mounted lithograph notes, he might be ‘the best judge of a foxhound in England’. A copy of the cartoon is held by the Kingston Lacy Estate in Dorset.
Cuthbert Bradley was also a sporting man – he famously authored ‘Fox-Hunting from Shire to Shire with Many Noted Packs’ and worked as a sporting journalist for The Field. As well as illustrating for Vanity Fair, he painted polo and foxhunting scenes, and other pictures of equestrian interest. The majority of his Vanity Fair cartoons are of hunting men.
The Vanity Fair magazine of 1868 to 1914 was subtitled ‘A Weekly Show of Political, Social and Literary Wares’. Founded by Thomas Gibson Bowles, who aimed to expose the contemporary vanities of Victorian society, it featured regular full-page, colour lithographs of famous (or infamous) contemporary figures. It is for these caricatures that the original Vanity Fair is best known today.
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Condition: Generally very good.