The Buck and Doe Macaronies

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

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,88

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "13"
Lower margin reads: "BUCK & DOE MACARONIES/ Keeping it up/ Publish'd according to Act, Sept.r 7. 1772 by M Darly, 39, Strand."

They would seem to be quarrelling, and the young woman runs toward the left holding up in her right hand a glass whose contents are being spilled in her haste. In her other hand she holds a sword hilt downwards. She is well dressed in a mauve dress with white ruffled sleeves, a white apron and a blue laced bodice. She wears a wide brimmed flat hat with many ribbons. The hat is yellow, the ribbons blue. She also wears 2 chokers around her neck, one of beads and one a ribbon and a small pair of earrings. The man is running towards the opposite direction. He wears white breeches; orange waistcoat; green coat with black collar and a white neck cloth. What can be seen of his hair under a tricorn appears to be done with curls over the ears and a bag. He has one arm raised above his head with a can in his hand; the other rests on the hilt of his sword. The mouths of both are open as in the state of arguing.Label TextThe print is plate 13 from volume IV of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "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 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).