Sir James Hudson, G.C.B. — 'Ill-used'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') renders Hudson as a stout, white-bearded figure in a loose brown suit, hands pocketed, conveying comfortable but aggrieved retirement. The caption 'Ill-used' is the plate's editorial punch: Hudson had served Britain loyally as minister to Piedmont-Sardinia through the crucial years of Italian unification, cultivating Cavour and smoothing the path for a unified Italy, yet was passed over for the Paris embassy and retired without the recognition he felt his diplomacy had earned. Pellegrini's caricature — exaggerating the large head and billowing beard atop a squat body — reads as sympathetic rather than hostile, a portly gentleman nursing a genuine grievance. The number 185 in the Statesmen series places him squarely among the political establishment Vanity Fair both celebrated and needled.