Etiquette of a Romantic Repast

Table by Mrs. William Sarnoff from the 1981 book, “The New Tiffany Table Settings” — The gold and white setting has the gilded flatware turned upside down, in the French fashion. The stemware is in the American or British fashion, and not lined up above the dinner plate. It is in a small triangular cluster. Placement of the champagne saucer is is incorrect for this setting, unless the order is with a water glass first, then a champagne, then a red or possibly rosé, or white wine. It’s possible that the soup is being served with the champagne, but that is unlikely.

The monarchical decor of the Hapsburg Court, its red velvets, its white satins, its gold laces and embroideries, and its jewels, are recalled by Mrs. William Sarnoff in this intimate dinner whose multiple richness of elements burgeons with the romance of things past.

Mrs. Sarnoff's state portrait by the court painter Winterhalter of the beautiful young Princess Elizabeth of Hungary and the Two Sicilies sets the tone. Colors are restricted to the Hapsburgs’ red and white. An antique gold lace scarf from Mrs. Sarnoff’s family decorates the satin-covered table set with “Chrysanthemum” vermeil turned down in the European fashion, gold and white “Sheffield” bone china, “Antoinette” cut crystal, and Royal Berlin birds. 

A leaf-shaped vermeil ravier holds a ruby and diamond ring tied into pearl lariats, all by Tiffany jewelry designer Angela Cummings and all reminiscent of the jewels worn by the Princess Elizabeth in her portrait. Black lacquer side tables hold a bouquet of red silk flowers and a nineteenth-century black lacquer birdcage.— The New Tiffany Table Settings, 1981

There are wine and roses and candlelight, and Viennese waltzes in the background.

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

The New Tiffany Table Settings

“The New Tiffany Table Settings” of 1981 is filled with simple to elegant tables and table settings, created by some of the most successful hosts and hostesses of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Below is the book’s foreword.

The history of modern table setting opened on a momentous day in 1633 when Charles I of England declared once and for all that “it is decent to use a fork.” Since then the table's arts have prospered while all manner of refinements and curiosities have been seen, some practical, some stylish, some simply preposterous.

Tables are as much as ever stages that we set for action, miniature theaters of social behavior where a good percentage of every life is played out. There love blossoms or withers, careers are made or undone, fortunes are founded or squandered. The table is a place for enjoyment, for wit, for discovery, for celebration, for art, for intrigue. There we set out props that forecast the order of events and that imply whatever we desire from social exchange.

Anyone can set a table, and anyone can set it well with whatever means are available, provided that imagination and vitality are both brought to the task. The success of a table setting depends not on financial considerations but on having a point of view, on having a personal style rather than timidly depending on bland and faceless conventionalities.

In the pages that follow, there are table settings done at the request of Tiffany & Co. by some seventy-five well-known personalities of society, entertainment, the arts, business, and design. They have brought to their settings the same flair and authority that have brought them such remarkable success in the world. Each setting is in a way the self-portrait of its author. There are no answers given to the question of how to set a table, but the collective answer is: “Do what you want, and do your best.”

In 1808 the great French authority on entertaining Alexandre Balthasar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière published his famed Manuel des Amphitryons. In it he exhorted the good host or hostess not to hold back or to be ashamed of originality and generosity, and his advice remains valid: “Don't be afraid to put your fortune in evidence and do honor to it; do nothing to pardon its sources as there is no more honorable way to use it than to offer food.” — Foreword from “The New Tiffany Table Settings,”1981

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