The art of dining through the ages is a relatively neglected aspect of the social and artistic life of the very rich and powerful, which affords much interest to those with interests in different artistic disciplines. Probably best-known to students and collectors of silver and ceramics, dining was in fact an all-encompassing social ritual where the lord [for it was nearly always a lord or king at its highest level] went to extreme lengths in many fields to demonstrate his taste, wealth and social standing. As part of the lavish display, table decorations in the form of sculptures of food or other edibles [or nearly edibles] formed a part. They seem to have reached a peak of skill and elaboration in the seventeenth century before gradually giving ground to the medium of porcelain in the eighteenth century. However, even in the late nineteenth century the skills and traditions survived amongst a few cooks and confectioners, and continue to this day in the form of the modern wedding cake. Though few would rate these latter decorations very highly in terms of the art of the time, the history of table decoration and sugar sculpture deserves to be considered amongst that of the finest decorative arts of the time, in turn a reflection of the most advanced issues in paintings and sculpture.

Table decorations could and would involve court artists and designers of the highest calibre. At the wedding feast of Maria de’ Medici to Henri IV in Florence in 1600, the groom was absent, but his image appeared on the table in the form of an impressive equestrian statue, modelled in sugar by Pietro Tacca, pupil of Giovanni Bologna. In February 1815, a feast was given in the Great Hall of the Louvre by the Royal Guard to celebrate the final defeat of Napoleon and the return of the French monarchy. Huge pièces montées, in the form of gilded sugar military trophies, crafted by the patissier Carême, were displayed between the tables. At this level, table decorations were an aspect of political and social prestige, and required the skills of the finest artists and craftsmen of the time.

Table decoration generally forms part of the fashions for formal dining of the time. From medieval times onwards meals have been divided into separate courses of food, but laid out at once, in the style of a modern buffet. The lord sat on one side of a High Table by himself or with selected guests, with a display of plate on a sideboard at the side, and certain ceremonial items of plate, such as the salt, directly in front of him. Such a dinner is shown in Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry of about 1410 and the Grimani Breviary of about 1500. The tendency for the courses to move through meats to end in sweets appears to be a development of the fifteenth century. The arrangement of the meal was supervised by various officers of the household, such as the carver (for cutting the meat in the days before knives and forks), the sewer (server) and cupbearer, who held the cup up to the lord. The diners ate off simple plates or slabs of bread, and shared a central dish of food for four or ’mess’, two for more elevated people and of course one for the lord himself. The dining wares themselves were relatively simple, apart from the salt, as the main feature on display was the lord himself, dressed in his finest clothes.

At grand feasts, such as coronation celebrations, the emphasis was not so much on taste and appetite, as on ingenuity and display, as the meal was not intended to feed so much as delight the senses and impress the guest with the host’s wealth and status. It was customary to provide table decoration in the form of small-scale sculpture made out of marzipan or wax or [later] sugar paste, linking the art of the sculptor to the art of the cook. In the late medieval period they were called ‘entremets’ and (in England) ‘sotelties’, as the courses at medieval French and Burgandian feasts were known as mets. Sometimes at important state occasions, set piece entertainments took place between each met. In their simplest form these so-called entremets [‘between courses], involved the prominent display of a piece of sculpture with a particular significance for the occasion. This was usually of a religious, allegorical or political nature. More rarely, much more complex pageants, known as entremets mouvants, took place between each course. These sometimes involved costumed performers (or even automatons) and a host of carpenters, painters and sculptors were employed to stage them. Jaques Daret, (a follower of Robert Campin) and Hugo van der Goes were among the many artists who designed and produced spectacles of this kind at the wedding feast of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York at Bruges in 1468. During one of the many spectacular entremets mouvants at the feast, a dwarf riding on a lion presented Margaret with a flower (a marguerite in honour of her name) and sang to her an allegorical song composed by Antoine Busnois. As sister of Edward IV, Margaret would have been familiar enough with the protocol of entremets, though at the English court they were known as ‘sotelties’ or ‘warners’.

English court sotelties were based on the French model and, like them, usually consisted of a piece of allegorical sculpture accompanied by a related text or poem. Reserved for occasions such as coronations and wedding feasts, they (like all medieval art) were intensely religious in nature. At an English bridal feast, more or less contemporary with that of Margaret’s extravaganza in Bruges, the first course was accompanied by a sculpture of a lamb with the text, ’I meekly unto you, sovrayne, am sente, to dwell with you, and ever be present’. That of the second course was ’an antelope sayng on a sele that saith with scriptour, beith all glad & mery that sitteth at this messe and pray for the king and all his’. An angel with the verse ’thanke all, god, of this feste’ featured in the third course. The soteltie of the fourth and final course was appropriately ’a wif lying in childebed, with a scriptour’.