Art Institute of Chicago

The New Fashioned Phaeton

Attributed to Philip Dawe

Date

1776

Medium

Mezzotint with touches of engraving in black on off-white laid paper

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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.

The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.