A placemat defines one person’s place and protects the surface underneath it. Ours are built on a rigid core with a coated linen cover stretched over it, so they hold a flat circle under a plate rather than shifting when somebody sets one down. That construction is also why the same piece frames a plate the way a charger does.

On diameter, bigger is not better. Thirty-five centimeters sits in the middle of the common range for placemats and at the top of the range for chargers, which is why one piece can do both jobs. A larger circle crowds a round table as soon as you set it for six, and it buries the surface you presumably chose the table for.

One thing a placemat is not is a trivet. Anything that comes out of an oven needs something made for heat, on any table and under any mat.

This is the soft piece on the table, and the only one that gets handled for the whole meal. Forty-five centimeters is the size that covers a lap and stays there through a long seated dinner, which is most of what a dinner napkin is being asked to do.

The linen is pre-washed, meaning it was washed before it was cut and sewn. It arrives relaxed rather than new and stiff, and it does not need ironing to look the way it is meant to look.

The napkins are made in two grounds, off-white and oatmeal stone. That is why a table set with three different motifs still reads as one table: what the eye measures across a table is the color of the cloth, not the embroidery in the corner of it.

A dinner napkin belongs to the meal. A cocktail napkin belongs to everything around it: the drink before dinner, the coffee after it, the tray when two people arrive without warning.

Six inches is small enough that putting one out is not an occasion, which is the whole point of the object. These are crisp rather than pre-washed, because a small square seen flat from above wants a defined edge rather than a relaxed one.

On quantity, one per guest is the plan and two is the ceiling. A linen napkin that has been embroidered gets kept in the hand for the whole hour rather than taken and left somewhere, and it holds up to being used, so the stack does not need to be deep.

The basket is the piece people buy last and use most. The linen is coated and the top folds over, so it holds its shape whether it is full or empty, which is what separates it from a cloth that collapses the moment the bread is gone.

Officially it is for bread. In practice it takes grissini at six, bread at eight, folded napkins on the counter the next morning, and eventually hand towels in a guest bathroom.

It is also the only one of the four that works as a gift on its own, because it arrives looking composed and asks nothing of the person receiving it.