Lobster salad serving spoon, circa 1870, sterling silver by Ball, Black & Co., New York City; the Kemper and Leila Williams Founders Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection. Photo courtesy The Historic New Orleans Collection. John Stuart Gordon, the Benjamin Attmore Hewitt associate curator of American decorative arts, Yale University Art Gallery, will talk on “The Polite Implements of Eating: Innovation and Fantasy in Nineteenth Century American Silver.” This spoon is the signature image for this year’s forum and is from the personal collection of General and Mrs L. Kemper Williams, THNOC founders.

Claret decanter in Crystal City pattern, 1892, blown, cut glass and sterling silver by J. Hoare & Company, Corning, N.Y., and Gorham Manufacturing Company, Providence, R.I.; photo courtesy Corning Museum of Glass. Kelly Conway, curator of American glass, Corning Museum of Glass, will give a talk, “Transparency at the Table: Contents and Customs in American Glass.”

NEW ORLEANS, LA. — Presented by The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC), the theme of the 2016 New Orleans Antiques Forum goes behind the doors of the Southern dining room — a space that reflects tradition, culture, style and the ritual of dining in “Dinner Is Served: Decorative Arts and Dining in the South,” August 4–7.

All forum sessions will take place at the Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, in the French Quarter, and most other activities take place at locations in the French Quarter.

The event will feature 12 presentations from decorative arts experts affiliated with institutions such as the Corning Museum of Glass, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the Yale University Art Gallery and THNOC. Tom Savage of the Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library will return as moderator. Nick Dawes of Heritage Auctions in New York and Laurie Ossman of the Preservation Society of Newport County in Rhode Island will return as speakers.

The program also features three optional events. The preconference bus tour to St Francisville, La., on Thursday, August 4, will include stops at Catalpa Plantation, Hillcroft House, Grace Episcopal Church and Rosedown Plantation. The preconference walking tour of the French Quarter will focus on retail shops in Nineteenth Century New Orleans. Following the forum’s final session, participants are invited to a Sunday jazz brunch at Arnaud’s Restaurant. Preconference activities are limited to participants of the forum, and separate registration is required.

The Historic New Orleans Collection established this forum in 2008 to help boost cultural tourism in New Orleans and south Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina. Centered on a series of educational and entertaining talks, the forum encourages the appreciation of decorative arts created in and imported through the Gulf Coast. Sessions are accessible to experienced collectors as well as beginning antiques enthusiasts.

For registration or more information, www.hnoc.org or 504-523-4662.