Mary and Matthew Darly

Mary and Matthew Darly were English printsellers and caricaturists during the 1770s. Mary Darly (fl. 1756–1779) was a printseller, caricaturist, artist, engraver, writer, and teacher. She wrote, illustrated, and published the first book on caricature drawing, A Book of Caricaturas [sic] (c. 1762), aimed at "young gentlemen and ladies." Mary was the wife of Matthew Darly, also called Matthias (fl. 1741–1778), a London printseller, furniture designer, and engraver. Mary was evidently the second wife of Matthew; his first was named Elizabeth Harold.

During the first part of his career, Matthew Darly moved from one part of the Strand to other, but he always called his shops the "Acorn" or the "Golden Acorn." He may have begun his career as an architect but then moved into furniture designs and caricature, and soon acquired fame. It was written of Richard Cosway that "so ridiculously foppish did he become that Matth. Darly the famous caricature print seller, introduced an etching of him in his window in the Strand as the ‘Macaroni Miniature Painter.’"

Matthias Darly not only issued political caricatures, but designed ceilings, chimney pieces, mirror frames, girandoles, decorative panels and other furnishing accessories, He engravings many of Thomas Chippendale's designs for The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (plates dated 1753 and 1754, and plates in the second edition, 1762), and sold his own productions over the counter. The first publication which can be attributed to him with certainty is a colored caricature, The Cricket Players of Europe (1741). In 1754, with a partner, Edwards, he issued A New Book of Chinese Designs, which was intended to minister to the passing craze for furniture and household decorations in the fanciful chinoiserie style, and also included some Rococo whimsical chairs and tables to be made out of gnarled roots. It was in this year that he engraved many of the plates for Chippendale's Director. A New Book of Ceilings followed in 1760. He published from many addresses, most of them in the Strand or its immediate neighborhood, and his shop was for a long period perhaps the most important of its kind in London.

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