The Dinner Party was an art installation by Judy Chicago honoring influential women throughout history. It featured 39 place settings arranged in a triangular shape, each representing a famous woman with a china plate and textile runners designed in the style of her historical era. Most plates featured butterfly-shaped vulvas to symbolize how womanhood was the single common experience uniting all the women throughout time represented at the table. Reactions to the installation varied greatly, from religious exaltation to outraged criticism that it libeled the female imagination.