Elle Décor's Camille Okhio on Staging the Table

Staging the Table in Europe

1500–1800

at Bard Graduate Center New York City

Oh, how we wish the only times we saw birds fly out of pies wasn’t just on Game of Thrones Centuries ago, a living element to your meal was par for the course— that is if you had the wealth to sustain such pomp. Bard Graduate Center’s new show, Staging the Table in Europe, lays out the manifold ways in which entertaining at home really was entertaining. In the center’s historic townhouse setting, artistry of the table is put on full display. Like a Laila Gohar of early modern Europe, skilled servants referenced manuals (of which several 16th- and 17th-century examples anchor the show) advising on napkin folding, the preparation and presentation of intricate dishes, and the careful carving of meats and fruits. Along with these reference materials are the objects—knives so pretty you would welcome the blade, forks of mother-of-pearl and carved ivory, dinner napkins depicting hunters and elegant steeds, soup tureens in the shape of boars’ heads, and even a damask tablecloth commemorating the English King George I—that together created the fleeting beauty of an evening meal, with visual aids in the form of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings and prints showing banquets well underway. Another show like this has not opened in New York for many years. It’s impossibly special. —Camille

Okhio