Inside, Outside-In Dining

I've been thinking a lot about outdoor dining lately. Too bad it's cold enough for me to be wearing two sweaters.

While pondering having guests wear gloves and parkas to dinner, I remembered this gorgeous image and promptly recovered from my delusions:

Interior Design by Robert Kime. Photo by Derry Moore. Scan from Architectural Digest, January 1995.

How lush is that?! Copious potted plants create a fantastic wall of greenery, minus the pesky bugs I'm surely going to be complaining about when I do finally have my dinner outdoors. It also doesn't hurt that the Chinese lanterns and soft light remind me of John Singer Sargent's "Carnation Lily Lily Rose." Actually, that's a pretty great source of inspiration for an elegant springtime dinner; I wonder if Kime had it in mind when he designed his conservatory dining room...

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent, 1885-86. Oil on Canvas.