Matthew Webb — 'Swam the Channel'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') renders Captain Matthew Webb in profile, hands thrust into the pockets of his brown trousers, wearing a double-breasted dark coat and black tie — the respectable civilian dress of a newly minted celebrity. Webb had crossed the English Channel on 24–25 August 1875, the first person confirmed to have swum it unaided, and Vanity Fair rushed him into print within weeks. Pellegrini's caricature emphasises a heavy, barrel-chested torso and a prominent ruddy face with a sandy moustache — the physique of the endurance swimmer made slightly comic by bourgeois tailoring. The caption 'Swam the Channel' is the whole argument: Webb's feat is rendered with the quiet irony of dressing raw physical heroism in a gentleman's suit.