conversation piece

Noun

conversation piece (plural conversation pieces)

1. An unusual item, such as a painting, or a tabletop knick-knack which encourages comment from visitors, and so helps to break the ice.
   • I don't think much of the sculpture in their front yard, but I guess it makes a good conversation piece.
   • And Dwayne again carried on a wry talk with the Creator of the Universe, using a robot as an unfeeling conversation piece. A lot of people in Midland City put useless objects from Hawaii or Mexico or someplace like that on their coffee tables or their livingroom end tables or on what-not...1973, Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Random House, published 2010, →ISBN, page 261
2. (painting) A painting of a group of people engaged in conversation or some other activity, popular in the 18th century.
   • Hogarth's enlargement of painting's scope was based on the conversation piece, which was to prove one of the most flexible and adaptable of genres. The idea of an informal group was not in itself new, nor the invention of Hogarth alone.1971, William Gaunt, The Great Century of British Painting: Hogarth to Turner
   • The painting is a conversation piece without conversation and rightly regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale.2001, Jules David Prown, Art as Evidence: Writings on Art and Material Culture, Yale University Press, →ISBN