MASTIGEYS

Date1771

Publisher Matthew Darly (ca. 1720 - 1780)

Publisher Mary Darly (1760 - 1781)

Engraver M. Darly

OriginEngland, London

MediumHand-colored etching with line engraving

DimensionsOverall: 8 1/2 × 5 1/2in. (21.6 × 14cm) Other: 6 × 4 1/4in. (15.2 × 10.8cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,14

DescriptionUpper right corner: "13"
Lower margin reads: MASTIGEYES/ Pub.d according to Act of Parl.t July 1.st 1771 by MDarly 39 Strand"
Label TextThe print is plate 13 from volume I of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." This caricature depicts a man in a clerical gown and collar. His hands are locked on the table in front of him and wears an expression of great earnest listening. A book, papers and a pen lie before him on the table. Below the design on the British Museum copy is the name "Dr. Smith" in contemporary handwriting, however, its uncertain which Dr. Smith.

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 1-3.
InscribedPencil inscription below the title reads: "m as tigeys"