Pellegrini, Carlo ("Ape")

1839

1889

Carlo Pellegrini was born at Capua in Italy in 1839 to a landed family. He had an easy-going temperament and in his youth he enjoyed Neapolitan society, exercising his talent for caricature among his friends. Having run through his father’s inheritance he joined Garibaldi’s forces during the Italian War of Independence. At the age of 25 he came to England, where he settled permanently and where he soon found himself obliged to make his own living. He turned his drawing skills to account and from 1869 started having his caricatures, which he signed with the sobriquet ‘Ape,’ published in “Vanity Fair”. The Garrick Club possesses two in this manner, (G0027 & G0326). Pellegrini at one time tried his hand at oil painting, but if the Club’s example (G0731) is characteristic, he had little talent for this medium. Pellegrini died in London from lung disease at the age of 50.