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TO MAKE A FAITHFUL COPY OF A RARE STONE-COLOURED FOUR-POSTER BED, THE FRIEZE PIERCED AND CARVED WITH SCROLLING FOLIAGE AND CENTRAL ANTHEMION, SUPPORTED ON TAPERING LEAF-CARVED POSTS
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)
Beds of such massive scale, though unusual for this period, did exist and were 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. Also see Christopher Gilbert’s book on Chippendale for a similar model at Badminton.
This very distinguished four-poster bed exemplifies the grace and elegance of the English Rococo, which was popularised by Thomas Chippendale and others during the early 1750s. Similar beds survive in houses with documented Chippendale associations, notably Dumfries House and Corsham Court, and comparable designs appear in all three editions of Chippendale’s Director (1754-1763).
The use of fine buff-grey distemper is particularly interesting and rare since it is more commonly found on the massively scaled tables, chairs and stools of the late Palladian period. In the eighteenth Century this colour was known as ‘stone’, although limestone would have been a more exact description, and was intended to evoke the architecture and sculpture of the ancients.
A bed of very similar feeling formerly at Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, seat of the Lords Middleton, is illustrated in Ralph Edwards’ The Dictionary of English Furniture, Vol. 1, p. 64, fig. 52. A further closely related example was made in early 1760 by Thomas Chippendale for Dumfries House, where it remains today.
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