Dinner with a Duke
Decoding food and drink at Welbeck 1690 - 1910

April 2010 - February 2012
This exhibition focuses on 400 years of entertaining at Welbeck, looking at the lavish and fashionable tableware, entertaining as social duty, and the specialist departments that included hothouses, bakehouse, poultry house, dairy, fruit and vegetable gardens along with stories of servants eating and drinking to much while the family was away.
Curated by Phillipa Glanville, the new displays explore different aspects of dining with the Dukes of Portland from food production to lavish balls and dining in the servants halls. Exhibits include the rare silver wine fountain which came from Holland in 1711 and exquisite 18th centruy Sevres porcelain ice cream pails and serving cups.
Alongside these gorgeous examples of decorative arts are original household bills and recipes, including Robert Harley's chicken curry recipe from 1729 'How to make curry to eat with pillo'.
Read a recipe from The Portland Collection and take a look at some of the exhibits on display.
The Dinner with a Duke talks programme includes Food Historian Ivan Day, Curator Philippa Glanville, Architectural historian, writer and broadcaster Jeremy Musson and artist Jane Wildgoose. Check our talks page for detials.
[[s]ace For the past hundred years country houses and the aristocratic way of life have been romanticized. It has been widely perceived that a house passed from father to son through the generations, and that the occupants lived and entertained in luxury, sustained by a troop of servants and surrounded by precious and often old works of art and family portraits. But the reality is rather different: great families, and the Portlands were no exception, were often short of money. Also they lived mainly in London, the centre of their political and social worlds, retreating to the country only occasionally. The City was for shopping and business, Westminster for Parliament and the cultural life of the West End.
Exhibition catalogue by curator Phillipa Glanville,available from The Craft Shop.
NADFAS Review Fine Dining - Philippa Glanville explains how an exhibition of tableware at the Harley Gallery gives insight into how the Dukes of Portland entertained.