Carlo Pellegrini, 'The greatest liberal statesman of modern times' (Earl Russell)

Plate 408 from Vanity Fair's 'Statesmen' series (No. 18) shows John Russell, 1st Earl Russell — twice Prime Minister, architect of the 1832 Reform Act — rendered by Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') as a comically shrunken figure in a towering black stovepipe hat, seated on a tufted pink bench beside scattered papers. The disproportion is the joke: a great man physically diminished by age, his white chin-whiskers framing a craggy, self-satisfied face. A coronet floats upper-left, marking his earldom. The caption's irony is affectionate rather than hostile; by 1869 Russell was 77 and largely retired, the caricature treating him as a revered relic whose liberal legacy dwarfs his shrunken frame.