One of the Victor Greenaway items that we have acquired for our collection is a six piece table setting dating from 1969-73, with dinner plate. side plate and bowl. Glazed in red and yellow rust, and heavy to hold, these pieces are archetypal examples of the brown stoneware associated with the early 1970s. I wondered how this set would have looked at a dinner party in 1974. We decided to put it to the test and here is the result, on our Tasmanian blackwood dinner table, with goblets and carafe from the same period. In the slanted evening sunlight the pieces glow with warmth, and the straight-sided, flanged goblets that were Greenaway’s signature through to 1995 have a timeless appeal.
What would have been on the menu? At our house, home-made chicken liver pate from the Australian and New Zealand Complete Book of Cookery (Sydney, Hamlyn, 1970) in individual stoneware dishes, beef bourguignon from Louisette Bertholle’s Secrets of the Great French Restaurants (London, Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1973) with baked potatoes in their jackets and a green salad on the side, chocolate mousse (also from the ANZ book) for dessert, and a cheese plate to finish.