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 Astra” (which translates as “Thus one goes to the stars”) comes from the Roman poet Virgil and suggests that the wigs and expanding carriages shown here have reached astronomical new heights.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Philip Dawe
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Title
- The New Fashioned Phaeton
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Place
- England (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1776
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Medium
- Mezzotint with touches of engraving in black on off-white laid paper
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Inscriptions
- Lettered below image: "The New Fashioned Phaeton. / Sic Itur ad Astra / London Printed for R. Sayer & J. Bennett N.o 53 Fleet Street, as the Act directs, 22.d Feb.y 1776"
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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.)
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Credit Line
- Robert Chase Endowment
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Reference Number
- 1994.114
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/129795/manifest.json
Extended information about this artwork
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