From the exhibition
Edward Henry Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
Carlo Pellegrini · Published 29 May 1869

Carlo Pellegrini ('Ape') renders the three-time Conservative Prime Minister as a stooped, white-whiskered figure in frock coat, waistcoat, and towering top hat, monocle perched on his nose, one gloved hand dangling a watch-chain. The caricature's exaggeration falls on age and physical diminishment rather than ethnic markers — Derby was 70 and failing when this appeared, months before his death. A gilt earl's coronet floats top-right, anchoring his rank. The caption — *'It is his mission to stem the tide of democracy'* — cuts two ways: honoring Tory principle while acknowledging the tide had already turned; Derby had just passed the 1867 Reform Act, enfranchising urban working-class men in what Disraeli called 'a leap in the dark.'
Carlo Pellegrini Public domain