The Old Beau in Extasy

The ‘Old Beau’ in this satirical print is a ‘macaroni’, a social stereotype of the 1770s based on members of the Macaroni Club, a group of elite young men who enjoyed foreign travel, European culture and outlandish mode of dress including high, powdered wigs (often topped with small hats), face powder and rouge, colourful silk suits with elaborate lace ruffles, often accompanied by long swords. Macaronis were mercilessly mocked in print, ceramics, the theatre, ballads and literature for their supposed effeminacy. Many of these satires associate such fashioning and effeminacy with the suggestion of ‘sodomy’ (homosexual acts). A popular trope was to mock the macaroni’s supposed vanity and self-regard by contrasting the extravagant elegance of their clothes, hair and pose with their perceived physical shortcomings, such as being overweight, skinny or – in this case – old.

The ‘Old Beau’ is represented as being ‘in an extasy’ (sic) of self-regard as he admires the reflection of his elaborate wig that his barber is in the process of dressing with curling papers and a large ‘queue’ (tail of plaited hair tied with ribbon). He sits at a dressing table with a mirror, bottles and powder, adopting a pose drawn from the woman ‘at her toilette’ genre of portraiture. Above his head is a tassel in the shape of a ‘fools cap’. The theme of vanity is emphasised by the painting of Narcissus on the wall behind him. His pretentions are underscored on the bookcase with the inscriptions ‘Classical Authors in Wood’ (i.e. fake books). The verse inscribed beneath the image further mocks him as a ‘wretch! a Fop at Sixty two, / A true conceited, ugly, worn out Beau’, and states that ‘The Girls all hate him’.