This surtout de table marks an intriguing threshold for the art of marmotinto, better known as ‘sand painting’, a potentially unique example that marks the transition from transient table decoration to permanent, lasting artwork.

Sand painting is a relatively understudied artistic technique that was first invented and flowered in the later eighteenth century. It was George III who had first introduced the decorative practice of ‘table decking’, in which the dinner table would be strewn with colourful patterns made of powdered glass, sand and marble dust. This added an additional aspect to the recurrent courtly desire to aestheticise dining and the ceremony of eating, already present in the magnificence of Georgian silverware, but the designs of table decking were always intended to be swept away at the end of the meal. A potentially apocryphal narrative claims that George III himself commented sadly on the ephemeral nature of this beautiful practice, prompting Benjamin Zobel to innovate in response and invent sand painting as we know it.¹

The Swiss-born Benjamin Zobel was Windsor Castle’s ‘table decker’ and applied his skills as a trained confectioner to also manipulate sugar into elaborate patterns on tarts as well as sand on the tables. His invention of a specific adhesive allowed him to use the same technique – that of sifting the sand or sugar through a cut and pleated playing card – on a more fixed base. He went on to produce sand paintings for wall display, of which one can be found in the V&A (accession number P.12-1967) and several examples have sold previously at Replica Shoes ’s London (fig 1).

These are the form in which most works in sand survive, though even these are comparatively rare given the material’s hostility to humid environments. A surtout de table is a highly unusual application of the technique, and marks this piece as a transitional piece between transitory table-decking and permanent sand paintings to be hung on walls.

This surtout de table belonged to the Lambton family, after 1833 the Earls of Durham, with the date of the piece locating it relatively firmly within the lifespan of William Henry Lambton (1764-1797). On inheriting his father’s estates in the 1790s, he rebuilt the family residence under the architect Joseph Bonomi the Elder – his commitment to Italianate neo-classicism is emphasised in the central placement of the Medici in his lively portrait by Angelica Kauffmann (fig 2). He was sadly struck with consumption before the castle was complete, and was buried in Livorno – his son, who finished the renovations, would later become the First Earl of Durham and publish the politically significant ‘Durham Report’, which advocated unification and greater self-governance for Canada.

¹ For a longer discussion of this story and the possibilities for the origins of sand painting, see F. L. Carter, ‘The “Lost Art” of Sand Painting’, in The Connoisseur, no.77, 1927, p.216.