'Tableau' is French for 'picture' — from Latin 'tabula' (board). A scene treated as a painting.
A vivid or graphic description or representation; a group of models or motionless figures arranged to represent a scene; a striking or picturesque arrangement of people or things.
From French 'tableau' (a picture, painting, board, scene), from Old French 'tablel' (a small table or board, a painting), a diminutive of 'table,' from Latin 'tabula' (a board, plank, writing tablet, list, painting). The Latin word is of uncertain pre-Italic origin. The semantic development from 'board' to 'painting' reflects the practice of painting on wooden panels, and the further extension to 'a striking scene' treats any vivid arrangement as if it were a composed
The phrase 'tabula rasa' (blank slate) uses the same Latin root: a 'tabula' was a wax-coated writing tablet that could be scraped clean and rewritten. John Locke's famous philosophical metaphor — that the mind begins as a blank tablet — is thus a metaphor about furniture: the mind starts as an empty writing desk.