Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, 'A Prophet'

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') renders the poet, traveller, and anti-imperialist agitator Wilfrid Scawen Blunt in profile, hands thrust behind his back, belly forward, wearing a low-crowned bowler and a loose tan suit. The caption reads simply 'a prophet' — ironic in tone, yet not entirely mocking. Blunt had spent the early 1880s championing Egyptian nationalism and condemning Britain's bombardment of Alexandria (1882); the label nods at his inconvenient habit of being right. Pellegrini's caricature emphasises the red beard and the self-important posture of a country gentleman convinced of his own moral authority — prosperous, stubborn, faintly absurd.