Sir Alfred Cooper

Inscriptionback to top

Signed in pencil, lower right: ‘Spy’;
inscr. in pencil, top right-hand corner: ‘Alfred Cooper Esq’.

This portraitback to top

Some of Sir Leslie Ward's Vanity Fair drawings lack bite, and his figure of Sir Alfred Cooper is a case in point: ‘The portrait of him by Spy in Vanity Fair, 1897, is rather a likeness than a caricature.’ [1] It appeared on 30 December 1897, as a chromolithograph illustrating the weekly feature ‘Men of the Day’. Cooper’s necktie was changed from blue to black, but otherwise the print is faithful to the drawing. [2] The portrait is valuable as Cooper’s iconography is minimal.

Though Cooper is not mentioned in Ward’s autobiography, Forty Years of ‘Spy’ (1915), they could have been socially acquainted. Cooper had a fashionable London practice, as is clear from the ‘Men of the Day’ biographical commentary (‘[Cooper] is a surgeon of some degree and quite a popular fellow, who goes everywhere’) [3], and intimated in the print’s cosily exclusive caption, ‘“Alfred”’.

In October 1974 Stanley Jackson of 35 Geylen Road, Canvey Island, Essex offered the National Portrait Gallery thirteen watercolours that Ward produced for Vanity Fair. [4] Two were selected, the subjects having Dictionary of National Biography entries: the current work and ‘Sir John Aird’ (NPG 5014). Mr Jackson also offered nine prints after Carlo Pellegrini caricatures. For the prints and the two Ward watercolours he was paid £120.00 in December 1974. [5]

Carol Blackett-Ord

Footnotesback to top

1) ‘Cooper, Sir Alfred (1838–1908)’, Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows Online.
2) For copies of the Vanity Fair print, see ‘Reproductions’ below. For references to the print see Burgess 1973, p.79, no.667; and Matthews & Mellini 1982, p.239. For a reproduction of the print, see Sykes 1995, p.39.
3) See also: ‘“Alfred” is well known in the Row [Rotten Row, Hyde Park] as one of the Liver Brigade. Nevertheless, he is just as cheery as he looks’ (‘Jehu Junior’ (T.G. Bowles), ‘Men of the Day no. DCXCIX. Mr Alfred Cooper, F.R.C.S.’, Vanity Fair, 30 Dec. 1897).
4) Letter from S. Jackson to R.L. Ormond, 7 Oct. 1974, NPG RP 5013–14.
5) Letter from M. Rogers to S. Jackson, 20 Dec. 1974, NPG RP 5013–14. The Pellegrini prints went to the NPG Reference Collection, Archives and Library.

Physical descriptionback to top

Whole-length, three-quarters to left, standing, hands clasped behind back; blue eyes, grey hair, beard and moustache; wearing broad blue tie under butterfly collar, gold watch chain across waistcoat.

Provenanceback to top

Sotheby’s Wilkinson & Hodge, 28 October 1912 (103), bought by ‘Jackson’; Puttick & Simpson, 17 March 1916 (18); purchased from Stanley Jackson, December 1974.

Exhibitionsback to top

NPG Recent Acquisitions, 1975.

Reproductionsback to top

Copies of the print after NPG 5013
Chromolithograph by Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Vanity Fair, 30 December 1897; copies colls NPG D44888; BMA (no further details); RCP, 4788; and Wellcome L., London, no.2038i.

View all known portraits for Sir Alfred Cooper

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