Costantino Nigra — "Italy"

Signed Ape (Carlo Pellegrini), this chromolithograph caricatures Count Costantino Nigra, Italian diplomat and intimate of Cavour, here serving as Ambassador to Vienna. Pellegrini renders him in strict profile with an exaggerated aquiline nose, a device characteristic of the era's physiognomic caricature. The treatment is relatively mild by Vanity Fair standards. Nigra wears formal court dress: dark frock coat, white waistcoat, and a green sash with star badge, almost certainly the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus. His hands are clasped behind his back, the posture projecting patrician composure. The single-word caption, Italy, frames him as a synecdoche for the young kingdom's diplomatic ambitions rather than a private individual.