The Design History of Four Poster Beds: Tudor Period (1560-1650)

In medieval wills and inventories the framework of the bed is of slight account compared with the hanging indeed, it was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that wood was substituted for material in parts such as the head-board and tester.' In Scotland the bed in which the canopy is supported on four posts first appears in a list of beds belonging to James V. (of Scotland) in 1539.

In a bedstead without the tester, dating from the early years of the sixteenth century, in the Saffron Walden Museum, the head-board contains five linen fold panels, and the upper third of the posts, which merge from square to octagonal in plan, is honeycombed or divided into small enriched geometrical compart­ments. The lower part above the rectangular base is fluted in resem­blance of Gothic tracery .There is also a bed-head in the Victoria and Albert Museum of this period, consisting of four long Linenfold panels framed, and having on either side a baluster-shaped carved post, one of which has the original eagle finial ; and several bed-posts of the early sixteenth century. Of these the finest is a pair four-sided in plan, with base carved with Gothic tracery and shaft with delicate baluster ornament of Italian character, interrupted in the centre by a band on which is carved circular profile medallions!

A fine bed (but without its original cornice) is illustrated in Ancient Furniture The two tiers of panels of the head-board show a variety of motifs ; the upper part of the posts (which merge from square- to octagonal in plan) are carved with. a diamond and lozenge pattern ; the octagonal capitals are moulded and carved. The bed at Bradninch is a provincial version of early Tudor design, in which the posts, which are interrupted in the centre by a knop, are carved in resemblance to a palm stem. There are, however, many richly carved and monumental beds of the Elizabethan period consisting of a panelled and carved head, with a corniced canopy, which rests at the foot of the bed on two posts. The posts were sometimes joined to the framework, and sometimes stand on bases beyond and distinct from the actual frame. All important beds are made on these lines, the only difference being in the design of the ornament of the head-board and the posts. The use of the terms "celure " and tester seems to vary ; celure appears to be a canopy, either over an altar or a bed, and is defined in 1530 as the ciel de lit; the tester may have originally been the vertical part of the bed behind the head," but later is applied to the canopy itself, for Drayton speaks of "rich and sumptuous beds with tester-covering plumes."

The incoherence and weakness of Elizabethan design is very completely expressed in the design of bed-posts. In some instances columns spring from bulbous bases, which rest on decorated plinths, as in a bed in the possession of Sir Charles Lawes­-Wittewronge, where the diminutive column dying away into the bulbous base has an unpleasant effect. The same incoherence of design is shown in a bed at Berkeley Castle, where the short columns also stand on large bulbous enlargements, which rest on canopies supported by four small columns, beneath which stand human figures of rough workmanship. Scrolling terminal figures border the outer stiles of some beds and the upper portion of the head-board is divided from the lower and plainly panelled portion (originally hidden by the high bedding and pillows) by a carved rail. In a walnut bed dated 1595 in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the posts with their fluted columns and 'quasi-Ionic' capitals are on the whole sober in design; the capitals are surmounted by a classical architrave ; the lower part of each post has a gadrooned knop, and rests on a moulded pedestal, while the head-board is composed of inlaid panels divided by pilasters. In the bed with oak canopy and head-board, the hangings consist of valances and curtains, the latter either looped or pursed up during the day, or, as in the woodcut, tied back to the bedposts.

In the reign of James I., the carved bed was discarded by fashion for a structure hung and upholstered, and an interesting survival of this feature is the bed which was made ready at Knole for the reception of James I. by Richard, the travelled third Earl of Dorset. The posts, which are covered with taffetas, and the tester (which is eccentrically shaped at the top) and the soft t of the tester are richly trimmed with a full ball-fringe, and the angles surmounted by plumed vases.

A simple type of bed without a tester or posts was made throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

There are no survivals of the " trussing beds, intended to accompany the owner on his travels, or of the low truckle beds for servants which by day were under the standing bed, and which were noticed by Marmaduke Rawdon, when, going into the chambers where the maids were making the beds, he espied little trundle beds under the greate beds, which he understood were for the gentlemen's men."

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