In our modern world the way we eat our meals is very much dictated by lifestyle and technology. In most people’s homes the days of fine dining with friends has given way to informal barbeques in the garden, and in many, but not all cases, trays on laps in front of the television have replaced sitting around the dining table. What we eat and drink from has become determined by whether it can be used in a microwave, or be cleaned in a dishwasher.
Going back in time things were very different, and the Victorian period exemplifies how things have changed. Whilst the poor ate frugally and did not enjoy a balanced diet, being lucky to enjoy meat more than once a week, the well off ate well, and the rich indulged in meals beyond comprehension, prepared and served by armies of staff working below stairs.
In the recent Grantham Collective Sale, held on June 3rd and 4th, we sold a fabulous porcelain dessert service made by the Aynsley china factory in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, for a hammer price of £460.
Dating to the last quarter of the 19th century, the service comprises a comport, two tazza or low comports, and eleven plates (originally twelve). Each piece is beautifully painted centrally in puce with romantic British and Irish landscapes or abbey ruins, with in a cobalt blue ground over gilded with flower heads and leaves. On the reverse the view or ruin is hand titled.
Dessert or pudding was a culmination of a meal that would have comprised many courses, and would have included fruit, fancies and tarts, and often a centrepiece that would have been displayed on the comport. Nothing would have been eaten by hand, but with silver or plated small forks, spoons and knives. An age of elegance , long gone, that some may mourn, but others would celebrate in favour of a reduced waistband!
