Carlo Pellegrini, 'Oscar' (Oscar Wilde)

Signed 'Ape' — Carlo Pellegrini's trade name — this chromolithograph caricatures Oscar Wilde at thirty, captioned simply 'Oscar': the single forename signals that no surname was necessary. Pellegrini renders Wilde in formal evening dress — tailcoat, black cummerbund, white shirt — but loads the silhouette with dandyish detail: a boutonnière, a hanging fob, gloves loosely gripped. The pose is self-consciously theatrical, one hand on hip, chin raised in affected reverie. The face is gently but pointedly rounded, the curly hair full, the expression mildly fatuous — Pellegrini's standard tool for puncturing pretension rather than celebrating it. The caption alone does the real political work: reducing a controversially public aesthete to a first name courts mockery while conceding cultural celebrity.