James Johnstone, 'The Standard'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') caricatures James Johnstone, proprietor of The Standard, the Conservative London daily. The chromolithograph shows a stout, side-whiskered figure in formal black frock coat, pince-nez perched on a bulbous nose — Pellegrini's signature exaggeration of bourgeois self-importance — holding a sheaf of newsprint labeled The Standard with a circulation figure visible. The caption 'The Standard' identifies the man through his paper rather than his name, a Vanity Fair convention implying the subject's identity is inseparable from his commercial power. Politically the plate flatters Johnstone's reach while gently mocking the proprietorial swagger of Conservative press barons at a moment when Disraeli's party was about to sweep Gladstone from office. Pellegrini's draughtsmanship is warm but pointed: the eyes are half-closed, suggesting complacency bred by monopoly success.