French Peasant

Date1770

After work by Henry William Bunbury (1750 - 1811)

Engraver M. Darly

Publisher Matthew Darly (ca. 1720 - 1780)

Publisher Mary Darly (1760 - 1781)

OriginEngland, London

MediumHand-colored etching with line engraving

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 × 5 1/2in. (21.6 × 14cm) Overall (Plate): 6 × 4 1/2in. (15.2 × 11.4cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,9

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "8"
Lower left corner reads: "HB inv.t"
Lower margin: "FRENCH PEASANT./ Pub.d accord.g to Act of Parl.t April 1:st. 1770 by MDarly (39) Strand."
Label TextThe print is plate 8 from volume I of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c. “This caricature print shows a peasant woman in profile to left. She wears enormous sabots (a type of wooden shoe) which are stuffed with wool to keep them on her feet. She is costumed in a blue skirt, orange-red top with an attached hood, and wide yellow cuffs, red and white checked apron, blue hose with a V-shaped orange pattern, and white high cap. She has a large cross around her neck, and a small cross and rosary plus a pair of pince-nez glasses hanging from her waist.

The print is plate 8 from volume I of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." The 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 1-3.