Sir Charles Forster, 'An Amateur Whip'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') renders Sir Charles Forster—Liberal MP and Parliamentary Whip—as a stooped, forward-thrusting figure in a dark frock coat, rust bow-tie, and tan trousers, hands tucked behind his back and a paper tucked under one arm. The caricature's signature exaggeration falls on his enormous, jutting profile: heavy brow, pronounced nose, and receding chin, rendered with Pellegrini's characteristic warmth rather than cruelty. The caption 'An Amateur Whip' is a gentle parliamentary joke: Forster served as a government whip but lacked the professional ruthlessness the role demanded. No ethnic caricature is present. The plate belongs to Pellegrini's celebrated 'Statesmen' series, in which Liberal backroom operators receive the same chromolithographic immortality as cabinet grandees.