Vanity Fair lithograph Proof Plate for "The Ocean Race" c1874.

by Carlo Pellegrini (Ape)

Carlo Pellegrini (Ape) Vanity Fair Proof Plate lithograph for "The Ocean Race", Statesmen, No. 189,  c1874. Caricature of the Mr. James Lloyd Ashbury, M.P.

The text states ".. But being then, as he has remained to this day, moved by intense energy and impressed with the knowledge of his own powers, he soon became aware that the career of mere industry was far too restricted to offer any promise of conveying to the world at large a due sense of the great qualities he felt within himself. At four-and-thirty, therefore, he resolved to fit himself for higher things by becoming for a time a sailor and a man of pleasure. So he bought a yacht, and importing into his new pursuit that strict attention to business which he had learnt in early youth, he competed in successive regattas until at last he won the ocean race to America, and raised a quarrel with the New York Yacht Club the merits of which the most lavish expenditure of print and paper has left to the present time in indecision.
... The great seafaring town of Brighton naturally cast its eyes upon him... and to the seat which had once held a mere statesman and philosopher, he has brought sound business habits and that knowledge of yachting which is so essential in the legislative assembly of a maritime country.."

Vanity Fair was a weekly magazine of social comment, published in London from 1868 to 1914. The weekly addition of an amusing lithographic caricature of a currently newsworthy person, guaranteed the magazine’s popularity. Thomas Gibson Bowles, who established the periodical, considered the images to be “grim faces made more grim, grotesque figures made more grotesque, and dull people made duller by the genius of our talented collaborator ‘Ape’ (Carlo Pellegrini, 1839-1889). The other major caricaturist was ‘Spy’ (Leslie Ward, 1851-1922). Vanity Fair caricatures parodied any noteworthy personage who had been mentioned in the news, and thereby was fair game for ridicule.

Page size 394 x 263 (15 1/2 x 10 3/8 inches). Plate size is 360 x 184mm (14 1/8 x 7 1/4 inches) This plate is in fine condition.