Table Sitting

"Men smoking and drinking c1900", Harris Museum, Preston

 A smaller round table than the Sepia Saturday Postsdam Conference picture prompt but one of bonhomie and a lot less pressure at they drink what looks like mild bitter.  At first I thought this quartet may be drinking in a residential back garden but then read that it was common for a set of  the long churchwarden pipes to be kept drinking establishments and used by their customers.The photo is dated at circa 1900, the year that George Eastman made the $1 Brownie camera, cheap and easy to use, anyone could take photographs.  My grandmother had one of these and used to develop her own prints but unfortunately very few of her photos survive.  The quartet of our photo look to be of varying ages, you can tell the one in the best chair is not to be argued with.

Object A631342 Science Museum, London

 A tobacconist sign showing an officer smoking a churchwarden pipe 1801-1880, in an age of unnumbered houses distinct shop signs were used for easy location. The pipes were sometimes called Hussar pipes so the sign of a smoking soldier, almost gets me back on theme  

to that round table of the great and the good.  The three powers of  the UK, USA and USSR holding  the meeting at  Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Price Wilhelm Hohenzollen, the last crown price of Prussia.  Our smoking and drinking quartet would probably become more familiar with another conference and one that would create more problems than it would solve

 

perhaps they should have had a round table at the Treaty of Versailles, June 28, 1919.  The big three of this conference were David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau and I think the latter who had an exuberant moustache is the person leaning forward on the right had side of the table. This must be one of the sub-meetings at Versailles as it does not look like the famous photograph in the Hall of Mirrors. The caption on this photograph published in a book of 1935 says "With this official ending to the Great War, the world settled down to repair the damage that had been done, hoping that nations were weary of strife and would live amicably. But within a few months Europe was again the scene of international squabbles and intrigue". This caption reminded me of the famous and prescient Marshal Foch quote "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years".