Who is this?

Uncle Ray

Uncle Harry

Uncle Terry

My Dad

I remember choosing these four Spy prints with my parents while I was at university. Mum and Dad had travelled up from Geelong to spend the day with their favourite child (well, okay...) antiques shopping in High Street Armadale, their favourite street, and eating out at Phillipa's their favourite lunch spot. I'd played hookey from my Biochemistry lectures to join them.

The prints were to grace the entrance hall of my home in North Carlton, a beautiful Victorian terrace house that Mum and Dad had recently purchased as an investment property and which I was sharing with three other students. I remember that we had already chosen two when we realised that they bore a striking resemblance to two of my uncles, and the fun Mum and I has in searching for ones to represent my third uncle and my Dad. We did uncannily well, and my cousins always give a wry smile when they see their fathers represented with such an amusing likeness on the walls of my home.

They are among my favourite possessions, especially since one of my beloved uncles went to be with his Father in Heaven a few short years later. They now hang above the bed in our Melbourne bedroom.

'Spy' was the pseudonym of Sir Leslie Matthew Ward, a British portrait artist and caricaturist who painted numerous portraits that were published in Vanity Fair, the British weekly magazine between between 1873 and 1911. His subjects were mostly famous personalities and were easily recognised by readers of the magazine. My prints above in order, are really Joseph Cowen MP, John Palmer Brabazon, Sir George Campbell and SirEdward Birbeck.

Take a look at Spy's caricature of this well known gentleman. Do any of you well-educated homeschooling mums know who he is?

I'll tell you next week.

Have an awesome weekend with your families!