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1955-62,25, Print
The Martial Macaroni
1955-62,25, Print

The Martial Macaroni

Date1771
Attributed to Henry William Bunbury (1750 - 1811)
Publisher Matthew Darly (ca. 1720 - 1780)
Publisher Mary Darly (1760 - 1781)
Designed and engraved by M. Darly
OriginEngland, London
MediumEtching and line engraving on laid paper with hand color
DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 × 5 1/2in. (21.6 × 14cm) Other (Plate): 6 1/4 × 4 1/4in. (15.9 × 10.8cm)
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number1955-62,25
DescriptionUpper right reads: "24"
Upper area of print reads: "Pray S..r do you Laugh at me"
Lower margin reads: "THE MARTIAL MACARONI./ Pub.d according to Act of Parl.t Nov. 6..th 1771 by MDarly 39 Strand."
Label TextThe print is plate 24 from volume I of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." This caricature is said to represent Charles Horneck (1751-1804), the brother-in-law of artist and engraver Henry Wlliam Bunbury (1750-1811). Here he is depicted as a young military officer dressed in the extreme of the fashion of his class. The lacings show up in a great profusion of bows. His breeches are blue. He wears a Nivernois (tri-corn) hat, trimmed with extravagant ribbons and cockade. His hair is dressed with two upright curls in front of his ears, and a thick, perfectly straight (drawn out on an angle to correspond to the sword below) extremely long queue is attached to the back of the head and is enclosed in a ribbon. He carries a long cane with large head and enormous gold tassels, and his sword projecting out from the far side, also had large gold tassels.

The Darly's were a husband-and-wife team who capitalized on the craze for caricatures: the practice of making a likeness with exaggerated mannerisms or features to create a comic effect. This form 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 prints 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 1-3.