Augustus William Lumley-Savile, 'Cotillon'

Signed Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) and captioned "Cotillon", this chromolithograph — Vanity Fair's Men of the Day No. 76 — caricatures Augustus William Lumley-Savile (1829–1887), a figure associated with fashionable ballroom society. Pellegrini deploys his signature formula: a grossly enlarged head — here framed by extravagant ginger mutton-chop whiskers and a waxed moustache — planted on a compact, impeccably tailored evening body. White gloves pressed to the shirt-front and a boutonnière complete the picture of a man who takes his dancing seriously. The composition gently mocks social ambition dressed as refinement: Lumley-Savile's claim to notice is not power or intellect but the cotillion, the elaborate French ballroom figure then fashionable in London drawing rooms.