"Brother Joseph" an original sketch for Punch by Edward Tennyson Reed 1905

[CHAMBERLAIN, Joseph]; REED (Edward Tennyson). “Brother Joseph” — Greatest Performer on the Harmoni-ahum!

Original Punch cartoon drawing, 1905.
 
Original pen and ink drawing on heavy wove paper, 200 × 300 mm (mount 360 × 450 mm), signed “E.T.R.” lower right, lightly toned with one or two faint spots, neatly presented in a modern window mount.
 
A fine finished cartoon drawing by Punch artist Edward Tennyson Reed (1860–1933), published in Punch, 23 August 1905, satirising Joseph Chamberlain’s protectionist “Tariff Reform” campaign that fractured Arthur Balfour’s Conservative government. 
 
The scene — a “ministerial minstrel troupe” playing banjos as the tide creeps in — appeared with the caption “Who says the sands are running out?”, a jab at the fading authority of Balfour’s cabinet. The placard hails Chamberlain as “Brother Joseph,” the “greatest performer,” a reference to his dominating role in cabinet debate.
 
Reed’s caricature for Punch depicts leading political figures of the day: Arthur Balfour at the piano, Lord Lansdowne, Joseph and Austen Chamberlain, Lord Halsbury, Alfred Lyttelton, and Henry Campbell-Bannerman, with Lord Londonderry (then President of the Board of Education) as the “academic banjo” player.