The New Fashioned Phaeton
1776
Medium
Mezzotint with touches of engraving in black on off-white laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 35.2 × 25.2 cm (13 7/8 × 9 15/16 in.); Sheet: 47 × 29.9 cm (18 9/16 × 11 13/16 in.)
Classification
mezzotint
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
129795
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Devoting less effort to the fabric textures and pearly luster of high-society mezzotint portraits, publishers also mocked sartorial excesses, especially those with foreign sources. In 1770s London, the epithet macaroni was directed at dandyish men and overdressed women who adopted an outrageous, European style and acted in an affected manners that their genders were said to become indistinguishable. Such costumes evidently even made leaving home difficult. This print’s subtitle, “Sic Itur ad Ast...