sb. Pl. tableaux. [F. tableau, OF. tablel, dim. of table.]
1. A picture; usually fig. a picturesque or graphic description.
1699. Lister, Journey to Paris, 39. The History of Maria of Medicis is Painted by Rubens…. The Allegoric assistants in all the Tableaux are very airy and fancifully set out.
1801. Fuseli, in Lect. Paint., iii. (1848), 429. The Massacre of the Innocents by Baccio Bandinelli … is a complicated tableau of every contortion of human attitude.
1855. H. R. Schoolcraft, in Longfellow’s Life (1891), II. 301. Exhibiting these fresh tableaux of Indian life.
1886. F. Harrison, Choice Bks., iii. 54. They epitomise civilisation in a regular series of striking tableaux of the past.
2. A group of persons and accessories, producing a picturesque effect.
1813. Sir R. Wilson, Pr. Diary, II. 458. [In the battle of Leipzig] the whole arrangement and execution were perfect, presenting the grandest tableau ever contemplated.
1867. Baker, Nile Tribut., viii. (1872), 130. All now halted, and gazed stedfastly in our direction, forming a superb tableau.
b. = Tableau vivant: see 4.
1828. W. Irving, Life & Lett. (1864), II. 276. We had afterwards a tableau of a Sybil by Mademoiselle F.
1862. Baroness Bunsen, in Hare, Life, II. vii. 318. After all possible singing and toasting two tableaux were given.
c. Used elliptically to express the sudden creation of a striking or dramatic situation, a ‘scene,’ which it is left to the reader to imagine.
1885. Pall Mall G., 12 Nov., 11/1. A delay occurs in the working of the machinery [of the guillotine], when in rushes Miss Rorke, and tableau.
1894. Westm. Gaz., 18 Oct., 5/2. She overheard a gentleman ask another, pointing to two of the witnesses, ‘Which of those old cats is Mrs. C.?’ Mrs. C. leaned over and said ‘That particular tabby, sir, is behind you.’ Tableau!
3. A table, a schedule; an official list. (A common use in Fr.)
1798. T. W. Tone, Autobiog. (1828), 266. I was carried on the tableau of the Armée d’Angleterre.
1863. Lepsius, Stand. Alphabet, 75. Comprise the seven classes in a general tableau.
1838. Harper’s Mag., May, 924/1. Those who, belonging to the fourteen grades of the tchin, or official tableaux of rank, are exempt from certain degrading penalties.
4. Tableau vivant, pl. tableaux vivants (same pron.), lit. ‘living picture’; a representation of a personage, character, scene, incident, etc., or of a well-known painting or statue, by one person or a group of persons in suitable costumes and attitudes, silent and motionless; transf. a picturesque actual scene. (In quot. 1883, applied to a group of statuary.)
1817. Moore, Lalla R., Pref. (1850), 15. The different stories … were represented in Tableaux Vivans and songs.
1837. Sir F. Palgrave, Merch. & Friar (1844), 4. The intellectual amusement of a tableau vivant.
1844. Warburton, Crescent & Cross (1845), I. xii. 106. The rich colouring, the antique attitudes, the various complexions that continually present themselves, form an unceasing series of tableaux vivans in an Eastern city.
1883. C. C. Perkins, Ital. Sculp., 385. Upon canvas the group would be counted a masterpiece, in clay it is a tableau vivant.
Hence Tableau v., trans. to put into a tableau.
1903. Contemp. Rev., Dec., 873. ‘Tableaued’ year by year in the popular Christmas Crib,… the Ass and the Ox, have become only less familiar than the Shepherds.
