The Turf Macaroni

Date1771

Engraver M. Darly

Attributed to Henry William Bunbury (1750 - 1811)

Publisher Matthew Darly (ca. 1720 - 1780)

Publisher Mary Darly (1760 - 1781)

OriginEngland, London

MediumHand-colored etching line engraving on laid paper

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 × 5 1/2in. (21.6 × 14cm) Other (Plate): 6 × 4in. (15.2 × 10.2cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,13

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "12"
Lower margin reads: " THE TURF MACARONI/ Pub.d by MDarly N.o 39 Strand."
Label TextThe print is plate 12 from volume I of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." This caricature is thought to depict Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735-1811) who was passionate about horse racing.

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 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.