Giuseppe Garibaldi — 'Revolution'

Signed T (Théobald Chartran, the French portraitist who contributed to Vanity Fair alongside the house regulars Spy and Ape), this chromolithograph presents Garibaldi at seventy: a white campaign cloak draped over a grey military jacket, a red cravat knotted loosely at his throat — the red shirt of the Risorgimento reduced to a gentlemanly flourish. His embroidered cap, grey beard, and upward gaze give him the air of a prophet rather than a guerrilla. The caption 'Revolution' is affectionate rather than alarmed; by 1878 Garibaldi was Europe's favourite romantic rebel, his danger safely historical. Chartran treats him as icon, not threat — a composed, almost saintly figure whose wars had already been folded into respectable nationalist mythology.