The principal component of The Dinner Party is a massive ceremonial banquet arranged in the shape of an open triangle—a symbol of equality—measuring forty-eight feet on each side with a total of thirty-nine place settings. The “guests of honor” commemorated on the table are designated by means of intricately embroidered runners, each executed in a historically specific manner. Upon these are placed, for each setting, a gold ceramic chalice and utensils, a napkin with an embroidered edge, and a fourteen-inch china-painted plate with a central motif based on butterfly and vulvar forms. Each place setting is rendered in a style appropriate to the individual woman being honored.
Wing One of the table begins in prehistory with the Primordial Goddess and continues chronologically with the development of Judaism; it then moves to early Greek societies to the Roman Empire, marking the decline in women’s power, signified by Hypatia’s place setting. Wing Two represents early Christianity through the Reformation, depicting women who signify early expressions of the fight for equal rights, from Marcella to Anna van Schurman. Wing Three begins with Anne Hutchinson and addresses the American Revolution, Suffragism, and the movement toward women’s increased individual creative expression, symbolized at last by Georgia O’Keeffe.
Wing One
Prehistory to Classical Rome
Primordial Goddess Place Setting
Judy ChicagoFertile Goddess Place Setting
Judy ChicagoIshtar Place Setting
Judy ChicagoKali Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSnake Goddess Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSophia Place Setting
Judy ChicagoAmazon Place Setting
Judy ChicagoHatshepsut Place Setting
Judy ChicagoJudith Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSappho Place Setting
Judy ChicagoAspasia Place Setting
Judy ChicagoBoadaceia Place Setting
Judy ChicagoHypatia Place Setting
Judy Chicago
Wing Two
Christianity to the Reformation
Marcella Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSaint Bridget Place Setting
Judy ChicagoTheodora Place Setting
Judy ChicagoHrosvitha Place Setting
Judy ChicagoTrotula Place Setting
Judy ChicagoEleanor of Aquitaine Place Setting
Judy ChicagoHildegarde of Bingen Place Setting
Judy ChicagoPetronilla de Meath Place Setting
Judy ChicagoChristine de Pisan Place Setting
Judy ChicagoIsabella d'Este Place Setting
Judy ChicagoElizabeth R. Place Setting
Judy ChicagoArtemisia Gentileschi Place Setting
Judy ChicagoAnna van Schurman Place Setting
Judy Chicago
Wing Three
American Revolution to the Women's Revolution
Anne Hutchinson Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSacajawea Place Setting
Judy ChicagoCaroline Herschel Place Setting
Judy ChicagoMary Wollstonecraft Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSojourner Truth Place Setting
Judy ChicagoSusan B. Anthony Place Setting
Judy ChicagoElizabeth Blackwell Place Setting
Judy ChicagoEmily Dickinson Place Setting
Judy ChicagoEthel Smyth Place Setting
Judy ChicagoMargaret Sanger Place Setting
Judy ChicagoNatalie Barney Place Setting
Judy ChicagoVirginia Woolf Place Setting
Judy ChicagoGeorgia O'Keeffe Place Setting
Judy Chicago