SEASON'S GREETINGS

The Christmas Dinner Table

TABLE XXIV

The Christmas Dinner Table

This design is intended to appropriately decorate the Christmas Dinner Table, and consists of a Wreath which is composed of pieces of Fine-leaved Ivy, Leaves of Variegated Box, Holly, Sprays of Mistletoe, intermixed with Small Apples, Winter Cherries &c. &c. Nos 1 are for Lamps; Nos. 2, Plants; Nos. 3, Fruits; Nos. 4, Confectionery, Nos. 5 are intended to be Glass Dishes, large size, for cut Flowers; Nos. 6 are Glass Tubes eight inches high; Nos. 7 Glass Tubes four inches high; and Nos. 8 are Small Low Glass Dishes - all to be filled with Cut Flowers.

Floral Designs for the Table; Directions for Its Ornamentation with Leaves, Flowers & Fruit. John Perkins. London, Wyman & Sons, 1877

Flowers and Figurines

Figure in Green Curtain

Meissen Figure Selling Roses

Dancer and Orchids with Curtain

Two Figures

Paintings by Ethel Susan Graham Bristowe (1862–1952).

Ceramics from the State Museum of Ceramics at Kuskovo Estate near Moscow.

Photos: TravelinaGarden, Kuskovo Estate, May 2019 

'Still-life with a pineapple': a painting by Ilya Mashkov and a book by John Claudius Loudon.

There was a renewed interest  in pineapple cultivation in Russia when Ilya Mashkov (1881-1944), Russian artist, painted Still-life with a pineapple in 1910.

Pineapple had been introduced to Russia in the 18th century. Special greenhouses and ingenious techniques were developed to cultivate this exotic fruit in the long and harsh Russian winters.
The first hothouses were dug below the freezing level of the soil (around 2 meters) and covered with a glazed structure made of logs. Many skilled gardeners were required to take care of the growth and  fruiting of the plants. 
By the end of the 18th century, pineapple were not only cultivated in noble estates but also in peasant farms and expensive Russian pineapples were successfully exported to European countries. Around eighty new varieties of pineapples were bred in Russia where their cultivation continued until the middle of the 19th century, when cheaper importations from tropical countries and a more expensive labour force made it less profitable.  

During his travel on the Continent between 1813 and 1814, John Claudius Loudon (1783-1823), the great English botanist, garden designer, horticulturalist and author, observed how "... the Pine Apple is cultivated most extensively in Russia; it occurs but seldom in France or Germany; and only in a few gardens in Italy." In his book The Different Modes of Cultivating the Pineapple from Its Introduction into Europe to the Late Improvements of T. A. Knight Esq. published in 1822, he reported about:  

"Culture of the Pine Apple in Russia. 

The Pine Apple is extensively cultivated in the imperial gardens in the neighbourhood of Petersburg and Moscow, and also in those of a few of the greatest nobility and mercantile men adjoining those cities. Nothing can be more wonderful than to contemplate the resources by which this plant, requiring not less than from 50 to 70 degrees of heat at all times of the year, is preserved in existence through a winter of seven months, during the whole of which the ground is covered with snow, and Fahrenheit's thermometer, often for weeks together, at 20 degrees below Zero. 

The head gardeners of the emperor, and the great nobles of Russia, are, for the greater part, Britons; and the sort of houses they erect, and the mode of culture they follow, is as nearly as circumstances will admit, those of Speechly or Nicol. 

The culture of the grape is, to a certain extent, combined with that of the Pine Apple; the former is trained on the rafters, and the latter grown in a pit, surrounded by flues and a path. In addition to the flues, many of the fruiting-houses have stoves built in them, on the German construction, which are used in the most severe weather. Sometimes there is a double roof of glass; but more generally the roof, ends, and fronts, are covered with boards; which not only prevents the weight of sudden falls of snow from breaking the glass, but by admitting of a coating of snow over them, prevents, in a considerable degree, the internal heat from escaping. This covering, or a covering of matts or canvass, as practised near Moscow, and from which the snow is raked off as fast as it falls, is sometimes kept on night and day for three months together. The plants being all the while in a dormant state, it is remarkable how little they suffer. ...

There are some German gardeners in Russia, who cultivate the Pine Apple in pits as in Holland; and crowns and suckers are forwarded in this way by them, and also by the British gardeners settled in that country."

Loudon does not mention that the 'golden pineapple', considered a vegetable related to cabbage at first, was served at the noble tables fried and stewed as side dish for meat and game, marinated in vinegar in interesting salads or as a drink fermented in barrels.

Pineapple cultivation gained new interest at the beginning of the 20th century but ceased after 1917.

Photos:
painting: Still life with a pineapple Original Title: Натюрморт с ананасом.
Ilya Mashkov (1881-1944), 1910, Oil on canvas
https://www.wikiart.org/

"Mr Loudon’s Improved Pinery"; pineapple greenhouse, 1810.
Engraving by J. Pass, showing a system for growing pineapples advocated John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843). Illustration from ‘Encyclopaedia Londinensis, or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature’ published in London, 1810-1829
https://thegardenstrust.blog

Further reading:
The Different Modes of Cultivating the Pine-Apple from its First Introduction into Europe to the Late Improvements of T.A. Knight, Esq., by a Member of the Horticultural Society, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Browns, 1822. 

In autunno, 1882. Filippo Carcano (1840-1914)

The skyline of Milan is seen beyond a row of potted flowers and plants arranged on the parapet of a balcony under a cloudy sky. 

At the end of the Nineteenth century, the centuries-old spires of the Duomo are flanked by a soaring smoking chimney and a belt of houses and factories that will soon take the place of the golden trees and fields in the outskirts of the city.

A nasturtium runs along the balcony next to a bergenia, with its fleshy and shiny leaves. A red carnation is tied to three sticks and three vases with red flowers, possibly hibiscuses, are close together. Moss covers the vase of a tropical plant with large light green leaves next to a begonia with  a warm copper textured foliage and tiny white flowers. The lanceolate tips of a variegated plant suggest the presence of other vases on the floor of the balcony.

Filippo Carcano was an Italian painter who lived and worked in Milan and is considered an important figure in the school of Lombard Naturalism.  

Painting from:
Filippo Carcano