Men of the Day No. 314, Vanity Fair, 1884

The first man to play for England at football and cricket, drawn keeping wicket.

Work: chromolithograph caricature
Maker: Carlo Pellegrini (“Ape”)
Date: 1884
Era: The Victorian game · 1870–1900
Source: Vanity Fair, 20 September 1884, CCNY Libraries · via Wikimedia Commons
Figure: Alfred Lyttelton — publicity clear

A footballer, drawn for the other season.

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

Vanity Fair’s Men of the Day, number 314, published on 20 September 1884. Carlo Pellegrini, who signed himself Ape and drew for the magazine for twenty years, shows Alfred Lyttelton keeping wicket in the colours of I Zingari, under the caption “English cricket”. The joke is in what is missing. Lyttelton was the first man to represent England at both football and cricket, and at university he played in Varsity Matches in five sports. The magazine chose the summer game for him, so this plate shows one of England’s first footballers dressed for the other season.

See it on your wall

The piece, in the room it was made for

Men of the Day No. 314, Vanity Fair, 1884, printed large and framed — in the den, the club bar, the supporters’ bar. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

Men of the Day No. 314, Vanity Fair, 1884 framed on the wall

About this reproduction

A reproduction of chromolithograph caricature — Carlo Pellegrini (“Ape”), 1884 — from the copy held by Vanity Fair, 20 September 1884, CCNY Libraries · via Wikimedia Commons. The source. The work was published before 1931 and is public-domain verified.
Printed faithful to that source scan — restore honestly, disclose always. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the piece you receive is the image as it survives, halftone grain honored as history, not damage.
Printed to order on museum-grade cotton-rag stock with pigment inks — the pairing is rated 100+ years.
Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the period’s, not ours.
Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed editions ship flat-packed).
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our pieces cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the maker’s hand is visible — the linework, the halftone grain, the lettering — on materials made to outlast their owner.

From the same hand