The novelty of a Jew Rabbi in the hat, wig, and band of an English bishop

Rabbi Raphael Meldola, the Haham of London's Spanish-Portuguese community in the early 19th century looked like this:



If you found it surprising (and I doubt too many readers of this blog do), you would not be alone. When this portrait was made and published (people hung gedolim pictures up then too) a review of it was posted in the Monthly Magazine and British Register (March 1807, p. 175):