Skip to main content
Advanced Search
1955-62,74, Print
The Macaroni Provider
1955-62,74, Print

The Macaroni Provider

Date1772
Publisher
Publisher 1760 - 1781
Publisher ca. 1720 - 1780
OriginEngland, London
MediumEtching and line engraving on laid paper with hand coloring
DimensionsO: 8 9/16" X 5 9/16"; plate: 7 1/8" X 5"
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1955-62,74
DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "23"
Lower margin reads: "The MACARONI PROVIDER./ Pub.d according to Act July 21.st 1772 by MDarly 39 Strand."
Label TextThe print is plate 23 from volume III of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." The macaroni figure is often shown with an exaggerated clubbed hairstyle. In this print, instead of hair, a woman is wrapped taking the place of the club. M. Dorothy George wrote “probably a portrait of some (alleged) notorious procurer; perhaps Thomas Bradshaw whose portrait he somewhat resembles. See Mast 4962."

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).