Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach — 'Guards'

Signed Ape in the lower right, this chromolithograph caricatures Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, a senior British Army officer who commanded the Household Brigade. Pellegrini renders him in profile as a stout, ruddy-complexioned gentleman in top hat, dark frock coat, and mustard trousers, furled umbrella in hand — the posture of a clubman rather than a soldier. The single-word caption, 'Guards', signals his command without ceremony. The exaggerated belly and reddened, blowsy face are Pellegrini's stock vocabulary for depicting comfortable English aristocratic flesh. No overtly ethnic caricature is present; the target is dynastic privilege wearing civilian ease, published at the height of Vanity Fair's authority as the register of Victorian male eminence.