Carlo Pellegrini (25 March 1839 – 22 January 1889), who did much of his work under the pseudonym of Ape, was an Italian-British artist who served from 1869 to 1889 as a caricaturist for Vanity Fair magazine, a leading journal of London society.

As a young man he caricatured Neapolitan society, modelling his portraits on those of Melchiorre Delfico and Daumier and other French and British artists of the period.

Deciding to leave Italy in 1864 after a series of personal crises, including the death of his sister, he travelled to England via Switzerland and France.

[1] It is not recorded how Pellegrini met Thomas Bowles, the owner of Vanity Fair magazine, but he quickly found himself employed by that publication and became its first caricaturist, originally signing his work as 'Singe' (French for "Monkey") and later, and more famously, as 'Ape' (a translation of "Singe" into English).

Pellegrini's work for the magazine made his reputation and he became its most influential artist; it printed his caricatures for over twenty years, from January 1869 to April 1889.

Apart from drawing his caricatures for the magazine, Pellegrini also attempted to set himself up as a portrait painter, but this venture met with limited success.