“A Performance for the Service of a Table”: New Light on Eighteenth-Century Dining

Abstract

Eighteenth-century cookbooks from the Anne Willan and Mark Cherniavsky Gastronomy Collection at the Getty Research Institute and the gastronomy collection bequeathed to the Warburg Institute by Elizabeth David provide evidence for the influence of Huguenot immigrants on gastronomy in elite European circles. Recipes and ingredients influenced the forms of new vessels: the terrine for serving soup, the surtout in the table center for dessert fruits. During the 1730s, cookery writers Charles Carter and Vincent La Chapelle illustrated table settings enhanced by light from silver candlesticks for evening dining that resemble branch lights on candelabra made by goldsmith Paul de Lamerie in London for Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, and single candlesticks for Huguenot banker Peter Le Heup. Both sets were personalized with the patrons’ coats of arms. La Chapelle’s illustrations of the terrine and surtout set standards for similar vessels designed and supplied by other contemporary goldsmiths, including Nicholas Sprimont.