Richard Assheton Cross, 'The New Man'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') caricatures Richard Assheton Cross, newly appointed Home Secretary under Disraeli's second ministry, as a squat, self-satisfied figure in a dark frock coat, cream trousers, and tall silk hat. The caption 'The new man' is sardonic: Cross, a Lancashire banker-lawyer and Conservative MP, was a surprise cabinet choice whose competence was unproven. Pellegrini's signature exaggerations are in full effect — the head is grotesquely enlarged relative to the body, the voluminous copper-red beard and whiskers nearly swallow the face, and wire-rimmed spectacles give him an owlish vacancy. The ruddy, simian facial distortion follows Pellegrini's house style, which drew on physiognomic caricature traditions that contemporaries freely applied across class and ethnicity. Cross would go on to prove the caption ironic, passing landmark social reform legislation.