The Female Macoroni [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 number1955-62,75

DescriptionUpper right-hand corner reads: "24"
Lower margin reads: "A FEMAL.E MACORONI./ Pub.d accor.g to Act July 14.th 1772 by MDarly 39 Strand."

A full length figure of a lady walking with hands clasped before her towards our right. Her hair is trained high above her head, placed under a small laced cap, and turned back in a large mass behind, so as to resemble one of the bunches affected by male macaronies at this period. She wears a magenta skirt and bodice over a white petticoat and long white lace-edged sleeve ruffles. There is a large knot of blue ribbon at her breast and she wears earrings and a broad black band of ribbon decorated with pearls is round her neck.Label TextThe print is plate 24 from volume III of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." The female "macoroni" is a take on the typical macaroni figure depicting a fashionably dressed woman wearing the tall toupee and clubbed hair of the "macaroni" figure.

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).