A fear of strange beds: in the January 1976 issue, Eileen Harris described the career of Carlo Pellegrini. Although best known as Vanity Fairs caricaturist Ape', he longed to be a fashionable painter, like his friend Whistler

Apollo, March, 2008 by Eileen Harris

By resuming his role as 'Ape' in July, 1877, Pellegrini was financially able to adopt the life-style of a Whistlerian painter. He followed Whistler to Tite Street, where their mutual I friend and architect, E.W. Godwin, designed him a studio--according to his specifications it was flooded by light from the roof and the walls--opposite the White House. There, and later at No. 8 George Street, Hanover Square, he painted the Society portraits which he exhibited, some of them in frames borrowed from the bankrupt Whistler, from 1878 to 1883 in the Grosvenor Gallery, made fashionable by Whistler. His devoted friends, among them Joseph Comyns Carr, co-director of the gallery, engineered his invitation to exhibit, and welcomed his presence. But they had no delusions whatsoever about his lack of talent...

Innocent artistic ambition was the least of Pellegrini's many fantastic whims which Society indulged for the sheer pleasure of his company. His kindness, generosity, and good humour made his fund of eccentricities not just amusing, but acceptable and even attractive. He could abuse the English language; flaunt his homosexuality to Frank Harris; set himself alight smoking in his sleep; bring his own macaroni casseroles to the best dinner parties; refuse all country-house invitations for fear of strange beds, and when he did accept the hospitality of Comyns Cart he 'sat up all night in the drawing room with cold cream and black gloves on his hands'; he could be recklessly improvident and still be provided for. Whatever he did and wherever he went, he was the life and soul of the party. His own dinners with the composer Tosti in the back parlour at Pagani's became so famous that the humble Italian confectionery shop in Great Portland Street soon grew into London's most celebrated bohemian rendezvous. The 'artists room', provided especially for Pellegrini and his friends, was decorated by them and successive notable habitues with caricatures, sketches, bars of music and signatures until the graffito-covered walls became famous in their own fight. Miraculously, the bombs that fell on Pagani's did not destroy these wall panels, which were rescued, and are now preserved by the BBC.

To end almost fifty years of jesting in a state of consumption, like poor Violetta in La Traviata, was for Pellegrini an ordeal far worse than death itself. Fortunately, the pleasure he had provided was gratefully returned by friends who raised funds for his care in a private hospital, who settled his debts, and for several years provided all the luxuries and the company he could want until his death on 22 January, 1889. To procure a stone for his grave in Kensal Green cemetery, the Fine Arts Society sold a proof from the destroyed plate of his much admired caricature portrait of Whistler, which was increased in value by Whistler's contribution of his signature.