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A FAITHFUL COPY OF A RARE FOUR POSTER BED - CARVED WITH SCROLLING FOLIAGE
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Modern, after a design of 1750
Dimensions: maximum height 11’ (336 cm)
maximum width 8’ (244 cm)
maximum length 8’ (244 cm)
frame width (mattress size) 7’ (214 cm square)
This very distinguished four-poster bed exemplifies the grace and elegance of the English Rococo, which was made popular by Thomas Chippendale and others during the early 1750s. Similar beds survive in houses with Chippendale associations; notably Dumfries House and Corsham Court. Comparable designs appear in all three editions of Chippendale’s Director (1754-1763). Beds of such scale were unusual in this period - they were often called state beds. See the Dictionary of English Furniture p. 63, fig. 48 and pp. 64-67, figs. 49-50 for very similar beds on the same scale. As well as Christopher Gilbert’s book on Chippendale for a similar model at Badminton House.
The use of fine buff-grey distemper is particularly interesting as it is more usually found on the large-scale tables, chairs and stools of the late Palladian period. In the Eighteenth century this colour was known as ‘stone’, and was intended to evoke the architecture and sculpture of the ancients.
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