2-888-139 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Thr Tea-Room, 1850. Festivities at Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, to celebrate the majority [reaching the age of 21] of the Marquis of Stafford. '...the Duke and Duchess have dispensed their hospitality to such an assemblage of birth and rank as this county does not often witness...The appearance of the "Tea Room" was most elegant and striking. Under four orange trees, of remarkable dimensions, the tea and coffee tables were set out, and on each of them, encircling each tree, were twenty-one candles, emblematic of the majority of the Marquis of Stafford, arranged on multangular plinths. Other orange trees were placed in the room, so as to give the appearance of a grove. In the branches of the trees over the tables, small figures of cupids, in Parian, were placed as if grasping the golden fruit; and the tout ensemble was exquisitely beautiful in character'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.