VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The 18th-century English dinner table was a feast for the eyes. Sumptuous dishes, adorned with towering sugar constructions and amusing trompe l’oeil jellies of playing cards or bacon and eggs, all served on exquisite silver and porcelain, were a means to impress and assure guests they were dining amid fashionable people of consequence. Rienzi, the house museum for European decorative arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), will re-create this elaborate dining experience during English Taste: The Art of Dining in the Eighteenth Century (on view September 17, 2011–January 29, 2012). The first special exhibition ever held at Rienzi, English Taste will display a dining-room extravaganza typical of a 1760s English country house, featuring stunning recreations of foods from the influential period cookbook by Mrs. Elizabeth Raffald, the 18th-century’s Martha Stewart.

“Rienzi, with its remarkable house and collection, is the perfect venue to complement this exhibition’s grand culinary experience,” stated Katherine S. Howe, Director, Rienzi. “Rienzi’s celebrated ceramics, silver and glass, including the recently acquired Sackville Epergne and porcelain pieces from the Möllendorff Service, said to be designed by Frederick the Great, would have been used for a meal of such significance.”

The exhibition will feature impressive period silver including pieces from the MFAH collection given through the years by Dr. George S. Heyer. Also on view will be a pair of important wine coolers made by Paul de Lamerie, the most renowned 18th-century English silversmith, on loan to the exhibition from the Cahn Collection.

Read more about this exhibition.

Pictured above:  Dining Room at Rienzi.