By far the most important documentation of baroque sugar sculpture is to be found in some albums of sketches by Pierre Paul Sévin, a French artist who lived in Rome between 1666 and 1688. Sévin’s drawings are chiefly of papal meals with sugar-paste decorations of an intensely religious character. A feast for Maundy Thursday given by Clement IX in the Vatican in 1667 shows a table decorated with angels carrying the instruments of Christ’s Passion, all executed in a lively baroque style. Exactly two years later, Clement celebrated the same feast day at a table dominated by a sugar model of Bramante’s Tempietto, a centrally planned church in the classical style, surrounded by trionfi of the cardinal virtues.

During this period, an important reception in Rome for a foreign monarch or ambassador nearly always featured a table or side-board crowded with these trionfi da tavola, usually with an allegorical or political programme, tailor-made for the event. Perhaps the most remarkable of these was a feast given in 1686 by Roger Palmer, the Earl of Castlemaine, who had been sent by James II of England on an embassy to Pope Innocent XI. For over a year, Palmer rented the huge Palazzo Pamphili in the Piazza Navona (now the Brazilian Embassy). The chief purpose of the embassy was to endorse James II’s desire to restore Catholicism to England and to get support from the Pope for a war against the Protestant Dutch. The crowning event of the visit was a reception for 86 cardinals, who came to dine in the huge salon on the piano nobile (first floor), decorated with frescos by Pietro Cortona. Palmer’s steward, the Catholic portrait painter John Michael Wright, organised the occasion. Afterwards he wrote an illustrated work in the European festival book tradition, describing the theatrical display and pomp of the event. This was published in Italian in Rome in 1687, followed by an English version in London in 1688. The illustrations (engraved by Arnoldo van Westerhout after drawings by Giovanni Battista Lenardi) are the most detailed records we have of Roman baroque sugar sculpture. Wright had trained as an artist in Rome and belonged to the city’s Guild of St Luke (the painters’ guild). He probably had many contacts among the artistic community in the city and may have chosen the painters, sculptors and artisans who produced the equipage for the great feast from his own personal friends. We know that Cirro Ferri designed some magnificent coaches for Castlemaine, but it is not clear who produced the remarkable sugar sculpture for the table.

Formality at public occasions reached an apogee at the court of Louis XIV of France. For grand public occasions he still retained the medieval style of dining, in which the separate status of the Lord was emphasized by seating him on one side of a high table (the ‘grand couvert’ at Versailles). Such a meal required the maximum use of expensive items of plate if it were to have its desired impact. The buffet or sideboard was decorated, as in medieval times, with great quantities of silver and gold laid out solely for display. This was complemented by dining utensils of the greatest refinement and elaboration, many with a specialized function, and often made to match each other, which is essentially the origin of the modern dinner service. This was followed by what in England was called a ‘banquet’, a separate meal of sweet wine and preserved fruits, which could be taken outside, and required a separate service or set of utensils.

However, in contrast to this Medieval grandeur, a more informal style of dining arose, that rapidly became known throughout Europe as service à la française, to emphasize its French origin. As before, the meal was divided into two (or more) courses followed by a dessert consisting of fruit and jams. The essential point was all the separate dishes in each course were laid out around the table symmetrically in groups of four at the same time, and kept warm by means of covers or underdishes of hot water. In the centre was a metal and glass container for condiments or spices called surtout de table which became a decorative feature in its own right. These first two courses would have been served on gold or silver, as befitting the grandest ceremony of day.

Dinner was always followed by a separate meal of fruit called le fruit or later dessert (from desservir, to clear the table). This was an entirely separate meal of fruits, jams and ice-cream, with a light-hearted character, and was often accompanied by music, dancing or other entertainment. For this lighter course the lighter material of porcelain, imported from the East, was considered especially appropriate, contrasting as it did with the heaviness and formality of the gold and silver used for the first two courses before. The moulded shapes of Japanese porcelain were especially favoured. Dessert was usually associated with the garden and the outside world and was often laid out in pyramids of fruit to give the idea of a garden, something with accompanying figures.

The early eighteenth century saw the sugar sculpture of the dessert having a profound influence on other decorative art forms. These changes seem to have initially taken place at the court of Augustus the Strong in Saxony. This was the first place in Europe to make true hard-paste porcelain like the Chinese and Japanese, at the castle at Meissen from 1708 onwards. Rare oriental porcelain had been the material of choice for serving the foods of the dessert since the early seventeenth century, called the konfekt (’confection’) on account of the numerous sweet and sugary pastries that were supplied by konditerei (confectionery), the equivalent of the French office (confectionery/pantry), the department of the kitchen responsible for preparing cold foods. According to surviving inventories of the hof-conditorei (royal confectionery), the Dresden court started to use porcelain figures as substitutes for sugar ornaments soon after the foundation of the first European porcelain manufactory at Meissen in 1710.