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Print 1987-715,4
Billy-Button, Master of the Ceremonies
Print 1987-715,4

Billy-Button, Master of the Ceremonies

Date1771
Publisher Matthew Darly (ca. 1720 - 1780)
Publisher Mary Darly (1760 - 1781)
Maker M. Darly
OriginEngland, London
MediumHand-colored etching and line engraving
DimensionsOverall: 8 × 5 1/4in. (20.3 × 13.3cm) Other (Plate): 6 1/2 × 5 1/4in. (16.5 × 13.3cm)
Credit LineGift funds from Mr. & Mrs. William Kimball.
Object number1987-715,4
DescriptionUpper margin reads: "V.2/ 3"
Lower margin reads: "BILLY-BUTTON, MASTER.OF.THE.CEREMONIES,/ To an Eighteen penny Rout & Assembly./ Pub.d by MDarly accor.g to Act Dec.r 1.st 1771 (39 Strand)"
Label TextThe print is plate 3 from volume II of six volumes of Mary and Matthew Darly's "24 Caricatures by Several Ladies Gentleman Artists &c." The title refers to Billy Button, who was a character in Samuel Foote's play "The Maid of Bath" who was originally played by Thomas Weston (1737-1776) when it premiered on June 26, 1771.

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 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.