Dining and Display

(Catalogue nos. 31-36)

Trevor claims not to enjoy formal dinners, yet beautifully laid tables adorned with fine china, glassware and candelabra often feature in his work. He finds that rendering a complicated table, laden with silverware, linen and related accoutrement, in pen, ink and wax crayon, media that that have no relation to the subject matter, intensely appealing.  In the first two examples (cat. nos. 33-34), the settings are formal:  Georgian dining rooms complete with silk damask wall-coverings and paintings in gilt frames.  In both rooms the table is ready, the wine poured and dinner, presumably, about to be served – and yet there is no food and no diners.  With the close-up perspective, the viewer becomes a dinner-guest, waiting expectantly for the arrival of the first course.  Akin to dining and table presentation is the display of objects – a recurring theme in Trevor’s work.  Blue Delftware, or china vases and bowls form the nucleus of still lifes, set off by generous swathes of purple fabric (cat. nos. 31-32).  A Dutch Baroque interior is evoked in catalogue no. 36, with motifs borrowed from Daniel Marot’s highly influential architectural pattern book of engravings of interior ornamentation of 1703, a favourite reference of Trevor’s.