A preliminary pencil sketch by Punch illustrator, Edward Tennyson Reed c1917/8

REED, Edward Tennyson (1860-1933). Original preliminary pencil study of David Lloyd George holding a "War Commission Report". c1917/18
 
260 x 210 mm. Original pencil drawing on wove paper. Unsigned. A preliminary working study comprising three sketches of David Lloyd George, including the principal figure holding a rolled "War Commission Report", together with alternative profile studies. Very good, with a light horizontal crease near the lower edge.
 
An original working drawing by the caricaturist and illustrator Edward Tennyson Reed, depicting Prime Minister David Lloyd George during the First World War. Reed was among the foremost British political cartoonists of the late Victorian and Edwardian period, best known for his long association with Punch and for his sharply observed caricatures of parliamentary life. His "Prehistoric Peeps" series became one of the magazine's best-loved features.
 
The present drawing is clearly a preparatory study. Reed experiments with Lloyd George's distinctive profile and expression through a series of rapidly executed pencil sketches before arriving at the principal composition, in which the Prime Minister is shown reading a rolled War Commission Report. An uncommon sketch from around the time of the Great War when George was Prime Minister.