Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape'), 'Promotion by Merit' — Colonel the Hon. Frederick Arthur Wellesley

Pellegrini's chromolithograph shows Colonel Frederick Arthur Wellesley — grandson of the Iron Duke — in exaggerated side-profile, the signature mode of Vanity Fair's 'Ape' plates. The figure leans slightly forward, top-hatted, frock-coated, holding a cane, a boutonnière at his lapel; a medal ribbon is just visible at his chest. The caption, 'Promotion by merit,' reads with dry irony: Wellesley owed his rapid military advancement at least as much to his illustrious name as to battlefield distinction. Pellegrini elongates the nose and stoops the posture — his standard comic vocabulary for patrician pomposity — gently skewering the Victorian habit of rewarding hereditary pedigree while invoking meritocratic principle.