Docking the Macaroni–or the Butcher's Revenge 1768 - 1778

This etching, likely from the late 18th century, presents us with a symbolic clash. We see a "Macaroni," a foppish dandy, being attacked by a butcher, his wig about to be knocked off. Consider the wig: far from mere fashion, it was a potent symbol of status. Its removal signifies humiliation, a stripping away of social pretenses. In ancient Greece, hair was often associated with virility, strength, and power, the cutting of which was seen as an act of subjugation. Think of Samson and Delilah! The butcher, embodying a more grounded reality, enacts a kind of leveling. This connects to deeper anxieties about social mobility and class tensions. The image is not just a scene but a stage for a psycho-drama, a symbolic act of deflating the puffed-up ego. Thus, the wig becomes a vessel of cultural memory, its presence and removal charged with layers of historical and psychological meaning. It is the cyclical drama of pride and its inevitable fall.