The Fumigating Macaroni

Date1772

Maker M. Darly

Maker Mary Darly 1760 - 1781

Maker M. Darly

OriginEngland, London

MediumEtching and line engraving on laid paper with hand coloring

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 × 5 1/2in. (21.6 × 14cm)
Other (Plate): 7 × 5in. (17.8 × 12.7cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,79

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "4"
Lower margin reads: "THE FUMIGATING MACARONI/ Pub.d according to Act Aug.t 12.th 1772 by MDarly 39 Strand"

He holds out a drawing of a chair inscribed "Stool for the Piles". In his left hand he holds a drawing of a piece of furniture resembling a wardrobe inscribed "Fume". From his pocket protrudes a paper, To {h}is Excel}lency" The .... an Emb{as}sador. On the ground at his foot are broken medicine phials. Bundles of dried herbs hang from a cord. This figure is most elaborately dressed in elegant clothes. He wears a bright orange coat and breeches; blue waistcoat trimmed in gold braid and a most frilly white shirt. He wears a three-cornered hat and tightly curled short wig.
Label TextThe print is plate 4 from volume IV of the six volume series by Mary and Matthew Darly entitled "VOL. IV. of Macaronies, Characters, Caricatures." 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 encyclopedic "Caricatures" was their most famous work. It 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).