Michael Thomas Bass, 'Beer'

Signed by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini), this chromolithograph is plate 133 in Vanity Fair's Statesmen series, captioned simply "Beer" — a dry joke at the subject's expense. Michael Thomas Bass (1799–1884) was the Liberal MP for Derby and heir to Bass & Co., then Britain's largest brewery. Pellegrini renders him as a stout, self-satisfied figure in frock coat, waistcoat, and top hat, hands thrust in trouser pockets — the posture of a man who owns the room without needing to perform in it. The white mutton-chop whiskers and slightly hunched silhouette gently mock the industrial grandeur behind the parliamentary respectability. No ethnic caricature is present; the satire is purely one of class and commerce, targeting the awkward overlap of beer money and political virtue in Gladstone's Liberal coalition.