Mr. D. L. Moody, April 3, 1875

The caption reads Mr. D. L. Moody / April 3, 1875. Pellegrini shows the American revivalist evangelist leaning heavily forward over a plain pulpit, head bowed, thick auburn beard cascading downward — a posture that reads simultaneously as prayer and harangue. The black frock coat is rendered with none of the dandyish refinement Pellegrini usually lavished on aristocratic subjects; Moody is solid, working-class, unglamorous. That is the political point. Moody and his singer Ira Sankey had stormed Britain in 1873–75, drawing vast crowds and alarming polite Anglican opinion. Pellegrini's sympathy, if any, is ironic: the hulking American mechanic-turned-preacher bends over his lectern like a man inspecting accounts, not communing with the divine.