ABSTRACT
This round wooden plate or ‘trencher’ is one of a set of 12 held in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and it bears a hand-coloured printed image of the Persian sibyl, an ancient prophetess. Such objects have traditionally been neglected by historians, and yet they were central to the sociable exchange that characterised an after-dinner banquet from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. Decorated trenchers are specialised dining plates, brightly painted and gilded with pictorial designs and accompanying inscriptions and are believed to have been used to serve sweet confectionary such as dried fruits and miniature marzipan figures to banquet guests. Decorated on one side only, it is presumed the plain side would be placed face up on the table in order to serve the dainty confections. Those made in early modern England are remarkable for their depiction of diverse subjects, including biblical figures and parables, erotic tales, the labours of the months, anti-papal propaganda and controversial political events such as Charles I’s execution.
