A table dhote, or, French ordinary in Paris [graphic]

"The guests sit at a long narrow table which stretches across a magnificent room with an ornate ceiling and chimney-piece flanked by draped canopies resembling high curtained beds with domed testers. Two men and a pretty young woman serve wine, one drawing a cork, the others spilling wine over the guests. Another slatternly waiter removes a soup-tureen, spilling its contents in the face of an elderly guest. A woman and a little girl with a begging dog play tambourine and triangle. The women diners are in full dress, decolletee and with feathers in their hair; some of the men wear bag-wigs. There are two monks, and some ill-bred gormandizing is going on. In the foreground is a large cluster of bottles inscribed 'Frotignac [sic]', 'Claret', 'Burgundy', 'Bla . .', 'Ro . . Vin de Paris'. The figures are caricatured, except for the young women. The scene is a combination of pomp with confused disorder, and of noisy joviality with self-centred gormandizing."--British Museum online catalogue, description of an earlier state