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Transparent Delights
A fish pond of gilded flummery made with mid-eighteenth century salt-glazed stoneware molds
A Neale and Son obelisk covered in its sheaf of calves foot jelly, a sight rarely seen since the 1790s.
A 1769 Hen's Nest Jelly
All the jellies on this page were turned out from original salt-glazed and cream ware moulds using eighteenth century recipes. Discover more about the culinary arts of eighteenth century England by attending this important lecture.
Sèvres Then And Now:
Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain,
1750-2000
October 20, 2009 - May 30, 2010
Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens
4155 Linnean Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20008-3806
Info: +1(0)202.686.5807
A place setting for the Prince Louis de Rohan. Although an archbishop who became a cardinal in 1778, Rohan kept a number of mistresses and was much addicted to the pleasures of the table.The splendid entertainments he hosted in Vienna in the early 1770s, when he was ambassadeur extraordinaire to Maria Theresa, were legendary. However his scandalous behaviour and propensity for gossiping about the Empress and her daughter Marie Antoinette led him to be recalled to Paris. His relationship with Marie Antoinette became even more strained after a curious affair when he became an unwitting accessory in the theft of an important diamond necklace.
Engraved title page from Joseph Gilliers, Cannameliste Français (Nancy: 1751).
Detail of parterres fon Gillier's dessert plateau. He instructs the officier (confectioner) to make these of cardboard covered in green chenille in order to simulate hedges.
Sèvres biscuit figures of the early 1770s disport with sugar sculptures among the chenille parterres.
The ornamental centrepieces of a dessert of this period were usually placed on a surtout de table, or plateau of looking glass. A number of original surtouts from the eighteenth century have survived, but most are far too fragile to be used. So we decided to make a replica. This was fabricated by Tony Barton, who has worked with Ivan on many food history exhibitions.
Filling a chenille parterre with coloured nonpareils, to simulate the colours of a flowerbed. Sometimes these shapes were filled with coloured sugars called sables d'office.
IMPERIAL PRIVILEGE
Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718–44
September 22, 2009–March 21, 2010
Wrightsman Exhibition Gallery, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, 1st floor
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
This small, but important exhibition, co-curated by Jeffrey Munger and Meredith Chilton, explores the porcelain produced at the Vienna Manufactory of Claudius Innocentus du Paquier. Ivan was invited by the curators to re-create the sugar architecture, artificial fruit and flowers for a 1740s dessert table featuring a selection of Du Paquier porcelain tableware. As a model for the table, Ivan used an image of a 1740 feast attended by Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and her husband Franz Stephen of Lorraine.
The re-created table based on the engraving opposite. Note that there are only two place settings, one for Maria Theresa and one for Franz Stephen. As the most senior in royal stature, Maria Theresa sat on the right-hand side.
Detail of Maria Theresa's baroque sugar paste baldacchini. Ivan recreated these two architectural caprices by using eighteenth century sugar moulds and other tools.
The Metropolitan Museum have published an audio file in which co-curators Jeffrey Munger and Meredith Chilton discuss the dessert table with Ivan.
Go to the Metropolitan website.
The exhibition coincides with the publication of the most comprehensive book ever written on the porcelain produced at the Du Paquier manufactory - Fired By Passion: Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier
Edited by Meredith Chilton and comprising of three generously illustrated volumes, this seminal work includes contributions by ten scholars and scientists. Find out more.
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EVENTS DIARY AND NEWS 20010/11
Transparent Delights
The Extraordinary History of Molded Desserts In Georgian England |
 Presented by British Food
Historian Ivan Day
Friday, January 8, 2010
6:00 p.m. Reception
7:00 p.m. Lecture
63 Park Plaza
Boston, MA
or 617.350.5400
Held in conjunction with a preview of Skinner's January 9th auction of European Furniture & Decorative Arts, featuring Fine Ceramics
Preview Online Now |
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A Jelly in the form of the monogram of George III made from a mold in the Ivan Day collection
Sèvres Then and Now
Sugar Sculpture and Ices for a Prince
Hillwood Museum and Gardens, Washington DC
A celestial blue Sèvres tasse à glace (ice cream cup) with a serving of neige d’épine-vinettes (barberry snow). This important dessert service was made in 1770 for the Prince Louis René Édouard, Cardinal de Rohan (1734 -1802). As a special feature of a major new exhibition on the Sèvres manufactory at Hillwood Museum, Sèvres Then and Now, Ivan has used a number of items from the celebrated Rohan service to re-create the elegant finale of an ancien régime entertainment - the dessert.or fruit as it was known in court circles. Ivan was invited to create this installation by Liana Paredes Arend, a leading Sèvres scholar.and the curator of this marvellous exhibition. His installation is just a small part of a show that traces the development of Sèvres porcelain from the early days at Vincennes in the 1750s to the end of the twentieth century. The key stages in the factory's output are illuminated by a very intelligently selected range of objects, some from Hillwood's own rich collections. If you are interested in the material culture of the table as well as the decorative arts, do not miss this wonderful exhibition |
| Parterre desserts of this kind were all the rage from the late 1720s through to the French Revolution in 1789. Ivan has loosely modelled his table on an engraving in Le Cannameliste Français (Nancy: 1751) by Joseph Gilliers, chef d'office to Stanislas Leczinski, the deposed king of Poland, who became Duc de Lorraine et Bar and was Louis XVI’s maternal grandfather. Although Gillier’s work belongs to the early 1750s, a second edition was published in Nancy in 1768 and there is much evidence to suggest that the rich dessert settings of the kind he illustrated remained fashionable until the time of the Revolution. This setting would be appropriate for an entertainment set in say 1772 or 1773. Rohan himself had strong links with the later Polish king Stanislas II August Poniatowski, who nominated him as a cardinal in 1778. |
| Ivan's own copy of Joseph Gilliers, Cannameliste Français (Nancy: 1751). |
The biscuit figure in the foreground is known as The Bather and was modelled by Falconet in 1770 and is more or less contemporary with the Rohan service.
Acknowledgements - Ivan would like to thank Tony Barton, Alyson Lilleyman, Charlotte Hepworth, Ken Noble and in particular Fay Pinder, without whose help this project would not have been possible. |
The bone and ivory confectioner's tools above used by Ivan in the construction of some of the pastillage flowers. Many of the decorative features were pressed in sugar paste from the wooden moulds below. The mould below the tools is carved with two very fine mosaic patterns, remarkably similar to those used for decorating porcelain at this period. Ivan used them in the construction of socles for small sugar baskets.The late eighteenth century mould opposite is a very fine example which is carved on both sides with acanthus motifs, vine leaves and classical urns.
Other examples of moulds of this kind can be seen by going to the Galleries pages of this website.Another important dessert table setting he created with Sèvres porcelain and biscuit figures can be seen by going directly to this webpage link -
Sugar and Sèvres at Waddesdon Manor. |
Click on above to find out more about the exhibition
Visit Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens home page
| All photographs in this section are courtesy of Hillwood Estate, Museums and Gardens and are subject to their copyright conditions. |
Imperial Privilege
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
| Detail of one of Ivan's sugar paste pavilions filled with paper flowers. The flowers in the small basket in the forground are made from pastillage. |
The Feast of the Oath of Allegiance, Vienna, November 22nd 1740. Engraved from a drawing by Andreas Felix Altomonte (1699-1780) in Kriegl 1740. This copperplate engraving shows the second course, which featured poultry, pastries and other savoury dishes. The Metropolitan re-creation is an attempt to emulate the kind of dessert that would have followed this course. The sugar architecture and artificial flowers would have been present throughout the meal as a dormant centrepiece, but would have come into their own during the spectacular dessert that acted as a finale to the meal. |
Some of the wonderful Du Paquier porcelain used in the dessert table re-creation. All photographs courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and are subject to their copyright conditions.
Acknowledgements - Ivan would like to thank Tony Barton, Alyson Lilleyman, Charlotte Hepworth, Ken Noble and in particular Fay Pinder, without whose help this project would not have been possible. |
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