The End of Dinner
oil on canvas, 1913
Jules Alexandre Grün, France
This painting appealed to me, because I never went to the beginning of a party that looked this alluring, and this is the end of one. We can all magically imagine ourselves into better places, better times, better company. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whether this is one of the good years or one of the hard ones, I hope you know you’re an essential and loved part of someone’s world, even when it doesn’t seem that way. Be gentle to yourself.
Our Christmas dinner and opening of gifts happens tonight. It’s also Tom’s birthday. Here are a couple of shots of the tables, ready for the festivities.
I hate to be pedantic (but I will be anyway), but the table in the painting looks too small for the number of guests…
Prompted by your observation, I did a little research about 1800s dining in France at formal dinner parties and found this info: Coffee is served after the dessert. At formal dinners, coffee is never served on the same table as the meal. Since there’s a coffee urn on the table, and cups, along with cocktail glasses, I’m taking a guess that this isn’t the dining table, but a place to gather after dinner for coffee and conversation, with a few chairs available for anyone who wanted to sit.