Enfilade

This fall at The Getty:

Charissa Bremer-David — Of Cauliflower and Crayfish:
The High Art of Dining in 18th-Century France
Getty Center, Los Angeles, 25 October 2012

Lidded Tureen (detail), Thomas Germain, 1744–50 (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum)

In mid-18th-century France, decorative sculptural elements on many luxurious serving vessels and tablewares actually portrayed, quite naturalistically, ingredients of the food contained within. Identifiable representations of vegetables, fish, and game can be compared to the recipes from period cookbooks.

Charissa Bremer-David, curator of Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Getty Museum, discusses the naturalism of these miniature sculptures and how they reflected the broader interests of the Enlightenment as well as the latest culinary developments. Discover how these visualizations were meant to awaken and enhance the palate. This talk, part of the Tracey Albainy Lecture Series, commemorates the life and career of Tracey Albainy, a specialist of European silver and ceramics.

◊  ◊  ◊  ◊  ◊

Tracey Albainy, a senior curator at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, died in 2007 at the age of 45. More information is available here»