The Illiterate Macaroni

Date1772

Publisher M. Darly

Publisher Mary Darly 1760 - 1781

Publisher Matthew Darly ca. 1720 - 1780

OriginEngland, London

MediumEtching and line engraving on laid paper with hand coloring

DimensionsOverall: 8 9/16 × 5 9/16in. (21.7 × 14.1cm)
Other (Plate): 7 × 5in. (17.8 × 12.7cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,71

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "20"
Lower margin reads: "THE ILLITERATE MACARONI./ of 21 Learning his A.B.C./ Pub accor.g to Act by MDarly Strand July 1.st, 1772"Label TextThe print is plate 20 from volume III of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." This satire is thought to represent Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk (1739-1779) who at the time this print was published had just obtained the role of Secretary of State for the Northern Department. He was ridiculed in the press for allegedly being unable to speak French, despite his aristocratic education. In the plate, a man dressed in the macaroni-type costume, the man uses a looking glass to read a children's primer. While serving under Lord North in that capacity, he worked to secure mercenaries from Hanover and Hesse to help British troops fight the American Revolution.

The Darly's were a husband-and-wife team capitalized on the craze for caricatures, the practice of making a likeness with exaggerated mannerisms or features to create a comic effect, a form that 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 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).