Ganymede

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 (Plate): 6 × 4in. (15.2 × 10.2cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1955-62,16

DescriptionUpper right corner reads: "15"
Lower margin reads: "GANYMEDE./ Pub.d according to Act of Parl.t March 1st 1771 by M Darly 39 Strand."
Label TextThis caricature is thought to represent a Westminster bookseller and jeweler named Samuel Drybutter* who was charged and publicly punished for homosexual acts in the 1770s in London. The epitaph "Ganymede" was used in this case as a slur against same-sex relationships. In 1777, Drybutter is thought to have been beaten to death in a riot, however other scholars believe he survived the attack and fled to France, dying there possibly in 1787.

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.

For more on Samuel Drybutter, see: Rictor Norton, "The Macaroni Club: Homosexual Scandals in 1772", Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 19 December 2004, updated 11 June 2005, updated 13 June 2017