Nast's Portrait of "Dick" Connolly

Within an oval portrait frame, Nast renders Richard "Slippery Dick" Connolly—New York City Comptroller and Tammany Hall conspirator—as a squat, rotund caricature in formal frock coat and bow tie, one small hand extended in a gesture of glad-handing innocence. The exaggerated corpulence was Nast's signature shorthand for corruption grown fat on public money: Connolly had helped Boss Tweed loot the city treasury of tens of millions through inflated contracts. Here the argument is simple—a thief dressed as a gentleman, bloated by stolen wealth, still smiling.