[Sca-cooks] tablecloth, shroud or food cover?

jenne at fiedlerfamily.net jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
Tue Oct 30 11:21:12 PDT 2007


> Can't find the message but someone said yesterday there is a 6th C
> painting of the Last Supper with a tablecloth. Now I find this
> confusing. Is this a symbolic reference to the Shroud of Turin? I do
> find some Jewish references to a leather tablecloth and to clothes
> covering food to keep the flies away but not to linen table coverings.
> Does anyone have more data on the history of the tablecloth?
> Suey
>

A quick look in the Index of Christian Art did not turn up any pictures of
the Last Supper in that database before 1000. However, a number of images
from 1000-1100 AD do appear to show draped tables-- the Byzantine ones
appear to be
draped with some sort of figured fabric and perhaps an upper cover.

-- 
-- Jenne Heise / Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net



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