Portrait of Thomas Nast

This formal photographic portrait — not a cartoon — shows Thomas Nast in three-quarter profile, wearing a dark suit and vest with a boutonniere and a small medallion at his collar. His signature walrus mustache and trimmed white beard are prominent. The image captures Nast near the end of his career; by 1896 his long run at Harper's Weekly (1862–1886) was over and his influence had waned. Yet the face here belongs to the man who weaponized caricature against Boss Tweed's Tammany Hall, codified the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey as permanent symbols, and shaped how Americans read political argument in pictures. The signature at lower right reads Th. Nast.