Famous Women Dinner Service

The Famous Women Dinner Service is a set of 50 dinnerplates, each hand-decorated by Bloomsbury Group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Commissioned as a dinner service without a brief by art historian and museum director Kenneth Clark in 1932, the set was made between 1932 and 1934. It represents 48 notable women, with another two plates that depict the artists, and has been recognised as a "bold, feminist statement",[1] cementing Bell and Grant's "seminal role in feminist art history".[2]

The dinner service predates American artist Judy Chicago's 1979 The Dinner Party[3] by 45 years.

The dinner service is on permanent display at Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex, the place of its creation.[1][4]

  1. ^ a b Grindley, Jennifer (4 March 2021). "The Famous Women Dinner Service". Charleston Trust. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  2. ^ Leaper, Hannah (2017). "Vanessa Grant Duncan Grant Famous Women". The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. p. 5. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  3. ^ Cooke, Rachel (4 November 2012). "The Art of Judy Chicago". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  4. ^ Tsar, Diana (25 July 2020). "Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Siddal and the Famous Women Dinner Service". Charleston Trust. Retrieved 25 February 2024.