Reproductie van een prent van een eetzaal in een hotel in Menton door H. Toussaint before 1886

Curator: Before us is a reproduction of a print dating to before 1886 by H. Toussaint; it depicts a dining hall in a Menton hotel. The original exists as an engraving. What strikes you first about this interior scene? Editor: That the tables are meticulously set but there is nobody sitting! It is as though this scene is a stage waiting for actors to make an entrance. A grand stage with very careful placement of all the set pieces. Curator: The print style does give that illusion. Realism and its focus on details transforms into its own type of theater, a constructed and idealized version. For me, the focus becomes about the material of place settings. This hotel dining room, presumably for the wealthy, relies on pristine linen, polished silver and probably crystal glassware to create its impact. Editor: Exactly! Think of the labor to get that crisp white tablecloth… the staff ensuring every fork gleams! We have a visual document of the hotel and its architects design, yes, but also an insight into how hospitality functions as a display of material wealth. You need people in the seats though! Curator: Maybe Toussaint was subtly acknowledging this artificiality – these 'actors' were, of course, consumers, and so also were another kind of material to be arranged within this scene. Editor: Well, if we see the dining hall as a stage, then all aspects of the material contribute to creating that experience: architecture, décor, tableware, all undergirding that high society theatre you mention. Curator: There's a particular emptiness in this sort of rendering, in the contrast of dark and light on a polished surface. This is not a room lived in, but a space in potentiality. Like waiting for inspiration to strike, I imagine... Editor: I’d rather be in the kitchen experiencing the production that precedes this empty performance of perfection. I’m wondering: who are the unseen workers and what were their working conditions at this hotel? Now there is an interesting piece. Curator: Always thinking of the labor. All that material does lead one to think about its origins, doesn't it?