The Unfortunate Macaroni

Date1772

Maker M. Darly

Publisher Mary Darly 1760 - 1781

Publisher Matthew Darly ca. 1720 - 1780

OriginEngland, London

MediumEtching on laid paper with hand color

DimensionsOverall: 8 3/4 × 5 9/16in. (22.2 × 14.1cm)
Other (Plate): 7 × 5in. (17.8 × 12.7cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,35

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "9"
Lower margin reads: "THE UNFORTUNATE MACARONI. / Pub accor to Act Feb.y 5 1772 by MDarly Strand."Label TextThe print is plate 9 from volume II of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "Caricatures Macaronies & Characters by Sundry Ladies and Gentleman Artists &c." This caricature features its subject as the full-length standing figure of a man, full face, dressed in the height of fashion. He stamps with rage, his right leg is raised high; his right arm is also raised, his fist clenched. His face, adorned with two patches, is distorted with anger. M.Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', V suggests it might be the portrait of an unlucky gambler.

The Darly's were a husband-and-wife team who capitalized on the craze for caricatures -- the practice of making a likeness with exaggerated mannerisms or features to create a comic effect. This form was brought back by aristocratic Britons who visited Italy on the Grand Tour. The Darly’s catered to this audience by publishing a prolific assortment of caricature prints during the 1770s. Many of the Darly's prints satirized the manners and fashions of the macaroni, a term used to describe a sub-culture of fashionably dressed men during the period, and subsequently, regardless of subject, the Darly's prints were known as "macaroni prints."

Their most famous work was their encyclopedic "Caricatures" which included prints of macaroni’s as well as other interesting characters, such as macaronis, all based on their own drawings and those submitted to them by amateur artists lambasting their friends, artists, and other figures in London life. The front page of Volume I describes them as “…a Series of Drol[l] Prints consisting of Heads, Figures, Conversations and Satires upon the follies of the Age…” These prints were published in groups of 24, in six volumes that were published between 1771 and 1773. Colonial Williamsburg owns volumes 1-4.ProvenanceBefore 1955, the Old Print Shop (New York, NY); 1955-present, purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA).