view slideshow
The past few days have been a flurry of activity at Rienzi. MFAH staff members from several different departments – curatorial, preparations, conservation, and mounts – are all busy working alongside English food historian Ivan Day on the installation of English Taste: The Art of Dining in the Eighteenth Century. They are busy arranging Ivan’s delicious and sometimes unusual looking historical faux food on Rienzi’s Dining Room table for this exhibition which opens on Saturday. The dishes presented are from Elizabeth Raffald’s 18th-century cookbook The Experienced English Housekeeper and reflect the second course of a typical 18th-century autumn meal. In addition to the meal shown in the Dining Room, Rienzi will open a new gallery space in a room that was previously off view. This space will have objects and materials that compliment the set table in the Dining Room: 18th-century cookbooks, molds, and porcelain that would have been integral parts of “the art of dining.”
English Taste will be on view from September 18th through January 29th. Tours of the exhibition are available as part of Rienzi's standard docent-led tour. Guests may opt to utilize audio guides for English Taste or to supplement the docent-led full house tour.
On Sunday at 2 pm, Ivan will present Rienzi’s Annual Fall Lecture in the Brown Auditorium in the Caroline Weiss Law Building.
Please call 713.639.7800 or email rienzi@mfah.org for more information.
Meanwhile, check the slide show to see some behind-the-scenes photographs of the ongoing installation!
