'Ahmed Khel' — General Sir Donald Martin Stewart

Signed Ape (Carlo Pellegrini), this chromolithograph caricatures General Sir Donald Martin Stewart, the Scottish soldier whose name is inseparable from the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The caption 'Ahmed Khel' commemorates the 1880 battle in which Stewart's force routed a large Afghan army, a victory that secured his reputation and led to his command of the Bombay Army. Pellegrini renders him in profile — frock coat, top hat, white mutton-chop whiskers, hands clasped behind his back — exaggerating his heavy jowl and portly silhouette with the affectionate mockery Vanity Fair reserved for establishment heroes. The Afghan reference is a trophy title pinned to an aging English general's lapel by a London weekly that regarded imperial campaigning as a career ornament.