Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton of Tatton

Signed by 'Ape' (Carlo Pellegrini), this chromolithograph plate — captioned simply "Tatton" — presents Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton of Tatton, Cheshire landowner and Conservative MP, in strict profile. The composition is characteristically spare: a portly figure in a long brown frock coat and black silk top hat, reddish beard prominent, hands thrust behind his back, black-lacquered shoes planted solidly on a bare ground. Pellegrini's caricature softens rather than skewers — Egerton was a dutiful county grandee, not a controversialist. The exaggerated bulk of the coat and the deliberate stolidity of the pose quietly satirize the English landed establishment: prosperous, immovable, and not especially interesting to the wider world.