Etiquette and a 1981 Astor Table Setting

“Before the Theater” by Mrs. Vincent Astor… Another setting from “The New Tiffany Table Settings” book of 1981 — In my opinion, this table is a mess. Clearly an “artistic” decision was made here as the Astor name was involved. Why else for a “table settings” book, was this “setting” allowed? Certainly it would have been much more appealing to show the table set for an anticipated coming meal. It was inappropriate to show a table after the meal had presumably been eaten, unless the goal was merely to show how the Astors dine and what it looks like prior to the table being cleared.

The days of Mrs. William Waldorf Astor, decked in diamond tiara and diamond stomacher, royally presiding over the Four Hundred at her Fifth Avenue and Sixty-fifth Street mansion have long faded into American social mythology. The more modest New York dinners of her granddaughter-in-law Mrs. Vincent Astor continue, however, to be as impeccably Astorian as followers of our great American dynasties could wish. 

For an intimate pre-Broadway theater dinner, Mrs. Astor has chosen a richly gilt and painted “Flora Danica” porcelain dessert service, and “Olympian” vermeil, already a popular Tiffany pattern by 1895 when Mrs. William Astor built her Fifth Avenue mansion. 

There are antique finger bowls that belonged to Mrs. William Astor, and a set of “Koskull” etched crystal stemware copied from models made in 1790 for Baron Anders Koskull, founder of Sweden's Kosta glassworks. These remarkable glasses, although they relate to Louis XVI style, are closely akin to George III English crystal and not unlike glass used in America at the time John Jacob Astor arrived from Walldorf in 1783.

To break the essential regularity of formal settings, Mrs. Astor favors multiple bouquets in miniature vases. Here she uses a dozen or so small crystal pears and apples holding roses and freesias irregularly grouped about a crystal “sweetmeat tree,” its hanging baskets brimming with flowers and crowned with strawberries.

Following the guests’ departure for the theater, the dining room’s set of four French Regency caned armchairs has been pushed back from the round Louis XVI table. An eighteenth century French pastoral panel attributed to Jean Pillement backs the candlelit scene. – From “The New Tiffany Table Settings” Book, 1981

🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia