This week we celebrate International Women’s Day.

It was in 1911 that IWD started being marked. A couple of decades after that was when something called the ‘Famous Women Dinner Set’ was commissioned. This was a set of 50 dinner plates depicting famous women down history.

Kenneth Clark (Baron Clark), the art-historian and museum director, commissioned these. (Those of an older vintage may remember the BBC serial ‘Civilization’ which discussed Western art, architecture and philopsophy. Though made in 1969, it was broadcast in India in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, and was one of the most popular art-history programmes in the world.)

Coming back to the dinner-plates, the artists given the commission were Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, of the famous Bloomsbury Group. This was the name given to a group of English writers, philosophers and artists who met between 1907 and 1930 in the Bloomsbury  district of London, the area around the British Museum , and discussed matters of art and philosophy.

It is said that Kenneth Clark got the idea of commissioning a special dinner service when he was dining off a historic blue-and-gold Sèvres service, originally made for Catherine the Great.

Kenneth and his wife did not interfere in any aspect of the creative work—what form or shape it would take, what pieces it would consist of, or even what it should portray.

In 1933 the work was completed, and after showing it to the Baroness, the artists presented the set of 50 plates to Kenneth Clark, who was probably quite surprised to see the result if his commission, because he thought he would be getting’…a wide ranging set of decorative crockery that included everything from soup tureens to mustard pots’

Picture from https://www.charleston.org.uk/event/famous-women-dinner-service

Vanessa and Duncan had selected 50 famous women down history—twelve each from four categories: Women of Letters (e.g George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, 10th-century Japanese poet Murasaki. Virginia Woolf and Elizabeth Barrett Browning); Queens (including Catherine the Great, the Queen of Sheba, Elizabeth I, and Victoria); Beauties (among whom were Pocahontas and Helen of Troy); , and Dancers and Actresses (including Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry and Greta Garbo). That made 48 women. The last two plates portrayed the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The artists had hand painted beautiful portraits of their subjects on Wedgewood plates.

Though he was initially a bit confused with the dinner service, it seems that Baron Clark quite grew to like his plates. It is said that he used to select specific plates from the service for use for particular guests, depending on their interests, or to poke fun at their sensitivities.

The dinner set, after being sold and re-sold disappeared from view for some decades, but later re-surfaced. They are now housed in the Charleston Museum in the UK—the original home of Vanessa Bell.

Another major work of art involving women and dinner is ‘The Dinner Party’, a 1979 installation by Judy Chicago. This is a dinner table arranged with place settings for 39 mythical and historical women. They are seated around a triangular table. Though controversial, this is considered a classic of feminist art.

In India we do have portraits (paintings and photographs) of women. But they are outnumbered by artistic works down the ages which put females at the centre—the oldest probably being the Harappan Girl, going back to 1750 BC or thereabouts. From there, to all the art in temples, to Raja Ravi Verma and his goddesses and mythical women, to the controversial portrayals of MF Hussain, to women painted by Amrita Shergill, Anjolie Ela Menon, Arpana Caur, Bharathi Kher and others, which are all classics today.

May many more artists immortalize real women in their art. It is an apt tribute.

Happy Women’s Day!

–Meena

And thanks to all our readers on this, the anniversary of our blog! And all those whose encouragement and support keeps it going!