THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TABLECLOTH
MUSINGS ON A TEXTILE
Thomas A P Van Leeuwen
Helen Ibbitson Jessup editor
The Rise and Fall of the Tablecloth offers a light-footed, richly illustrated, journey through the evolution of the tablecloth – from its earliest origins to its elevation as a central symbol within Christian tradition. The tablecloth of the Last Supper and the Holy Shroud share a mythical status, both believed to have been fashioned from similar textiles and dimensions. If a cloth had once adorned the holy table, it may well have been repurposed as the Holy Shroud itself. From that moment onward, linen table coverings assumed a central place in households of every class—from the poorest farmers to the wealthiest princes and prelates.
Tablecloths served families as a stable point of unity as well as theatrical stages for celebrations and ceremonial banquets. The simple white linens of taverns and restaurants invited their guests to engage in eating, conversing and flirting. The unifying and seductive power of the tablecloth was and is so strong that it creates its own magic spot as is so well demonstrated in the traditional picnic and the many erotically charged déjeuners sur l’herbe.
The study further examines the tablecloth’s role in medieval court culture and its surprising appearances across music, architecture, and painting. Polyphony and the art of painting drapery reveal striking affinities, while unexpected links emerge between table linens and early cartography, as well as in the first experiments of photography. Once the thread is followed, one discovery leads to another: old linens reappear as shrouds for ghosts and spirits, and the Holy Shroud makes a dramatic comeback as the table cloth of the Last Supper.
Ultimately, the narrative traces the decline of the tablecloth in contemporary dining habits—a decline that reflects a broader cultural transformation marked by the erosion of communal life and the retreat into individualism. Hans Sedlmayr’s pessimistic vision of modernity, Verlust der Mitte (The Lost Center), finds its fulfillment in today’s pervasive sense of disconnection. The disappearance of the tablecloth, then, mirrors the disappearance of the center itself.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TABLECLOTH will be published by Les Editions du Malentendu and Jap Sam Books by Spring 2026.
CLEANING THE VACUUM
A STUDY IN USELESNESS
By A Team of Enraged Housewives
(Photo by Wendela Hubrecht)
Cleaning the Vacuum is the fruit of a research project on the uses and abuses of cleaning, cleansing, and the frivolous uselessness of household machinery. The title story relates the ordeal of a Dutch housewife in the Underworld. Like her fellow inmates Sisyphus and Tantalus, she has been punished by the gods for hubris and is condemned forever to wash a windowpane that becomes befouled again the minute she believes it clean. Her sin? To have challenged a superior wisdom: cleaning creates dirt. During their research, the team encountered many unforeseen mysteries and found answers to questions never asked. The cleaning process caused problems great and small to cling to the proverbial mop. Why do we spend so much time and energy washing off natural and often harmless deposits? What cultural forces encourage – or discourage – this propensity? Why do people insist on owning a dishwasher, a machine proven to be inefficient, or a washing machine, when it would be far more economical and time saving to handle washing, drying and ironing centrally, as in hotels and hospitals? And why are all household machines so miserably designed and manufactured? Shockingly, no serious criticism has ever been leveled against them throughout their long service: some machines have persisted in their inadequacy for over a century! The dishwasher, for example, that caricature of inefficiency relying solely on just water-spraying and chemicals, has been passively condoned by the most injudicious customers since its introduction nearly a hundred years ago!
People surround themselves with things they do not need. Are they perhaps afraid of the vacuum? For many, a vacuum is a highly desirable state. Some spend fortunes on hotels where the rooms are spacious and devoid of whirring beeping and blinking gadgetry. Resorts where there is neither phone nor internet reception [German: Funkloch] are prized destinations: any kind of nothingness is heaven in a world so stuffed with junk.
That cleaning leads to destruction is a well-known and universally dreaded fact. More than once have picture restorers seen priceless masterpieces vanish beneath wads of turpentine-soaked cloth. Architectural fires, particularly those in monumental structures such as churches (Nôtre-Dame de Paris), castles (Windsor Castle), and theatres (La Fenice in Venice, aptly named, and the Liceu in Barcelona) have been caused by cleaning and restoration work.
Cleaning is one thing; vacuuming is another. We empty our minds, so to speak, when we perform our household tasks. Encyclopaedias and dictionaries compete for comprehensiveness, yet would it not be far more interesting to have encyclopaedias of things we lack, and dictionaries defining words for which no one yet exist? Our Team of Enraged Housewives is preparing precisely that: a long-awaited Dictionary of Non-Existent Words.
Also, as far as hardware is concerned, ‘design’ is the nemesis. Design and ergonomics stand opposed as vanity and labour. If the vacuum cleaner epitomizes faddism, the designer vacuum cleaner represents its ultimate folly. Logically, therefore, it has served as a model for artists, writers, philosophers, and composers: nothing seems more inspiring than the comico-aspiring qualities of the ‘aspirateur’. Composers in particular love its emblematic silliness. It inspired Gerald Hoffnung, and even the respected Malcolm Arnold scored a huge success in 1956 with his Concerto for Three Vacuum Cleaners and One Floor Polisher (plus Four Rifles to cap the whole thing).
On the other hand, the allure of the vacuum has also drawn artists toward representing silence and nothingness. John Cage achieved eternal fame with his Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds, a composition that instructs its performers to refrain from making any sound at all for four-and-a-half minutes.
All this – and much more (and less) – can be found in this necessarily modest yet lavishly illustrated volume.
To be published in 2026.
(Photo by Barbara Higgs)