'Russia' — Count Schouvaloff

Pellegrini draws Count Peter Schouvaloff, Russian Ambassador to the Court of St James's, in profile: a stooped, elderly figure in formal black evening coat, white waistcoat, red cummerbund, and white gloves, holding a top hat at his side. A decorative order pins his lapel; a small coronet floats upper right, signalling aristocratic rank. The caption reads simply 'Russia' — Vanity Fair's habit of reducing a diplomat to his nation, positioning him as a geopolitical type rather than a private man. The stoop and oversized nose are Pellegrini's characteristic mild grotesque, applied to foreign dignitaries with a cooler eye than he reserved for Englishmen — a subtle editorial distance the readership would have registered. Schouvaloff was then a key figure in Anglo-Russian tensions over Central Asia.