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The Bed in the Tracing the Origin of the Design Period Known as Early American Colonial FurnitureThe History of the Origin of the Design Period Known as Early American Colonial Furniture

This is a continuation of the bed in tracing its design period in the early American colonial furniture.

Plate XXXIII continued
The Tracing of the Origins of the Style Known as
Early American Colonial Furniture

Complete Bed

Day Bed of Charles II's Time

The draughts of the mediaeval dwelling made some form of screen to the bed a necessity. Curtains were suspended from the rafters, or, if the height was too great, from a sort of canopy called a "tester". Tester comes from the Latin "testa", a skull, through a French form meaning a "headpiece", "tete" is French for head. From a tent­like form the tester came to be a rectangular roof slightly larger than the bed. It was in Henry VII's time that the tester was sup­ported by four posts, instead of being hung from the ceiling. Except for the very early beds, "four-poster" is no more than a name, as most of the so-called four-poster beds have but two posts.

The steps followed in the story of the four-poster seem to have been these: (a) the four comer posts of a simple frame were run up to support a cloth tester and curtains; (b) the bed-head was half­filled with panelling; (c) the whole of the bed-head was filled with framed panelling. This bed-head supported the tester at one end and did away with the back pair of posts. The tester was made of wood ; (d) the front pair of posts stood independent of the bed­frame, which was called the bed-stock.

These great beds were mainly made when the Renaissance was at its height, and posts, bed-heads and tester were most elaborately carved or inlaid with decoration that copied from Italian work, that, in its turn, was copied from old Roman and Greek work. The two main panels at the bed-head are almost always filled with the round­headed Roman arch. The upper part of the posts is invariably supported by the Tudor bulb, which, in the case of the bed-post seems to have started as a split pomegranate or just a decorated boss, and then to have settled down in the large "chalice and lid" type.

Although these canopied beds continued to be made until i8oo, after Elizabeth's reign the woodwork became mainly the framework upon which curtains were draped. These beds were all made for the very well-to-do, and examples have been preserved because of their magnificence, because they were really quite comfortable to use, and in some cases because of sentimental reasons. There were no such reasons for the preservation of the beds of the poorer people and they were removed and destroyed so soon as more suitable and less cumbersome beds could be had. Finally, the iron and brass bedstead came, and only with recent years have furniture-makers begun to give thought again to wooden bed-heads and feet.     

Cradles in the Tracing of the Origins of the Style Known as Early American Colonial Furniture

Plate XXXIV
Cradles of the Rocker

Cradles of the Rocker Cradles of the Rocker Type (Jacobean)

Hush-a-by baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.

Having dealt in their turn with the children of the chest and of the table, it would scarcely do to leave this short reference to the bed without a note about the cot and cradle. Cradles are probably as old as any article of furniture, for wherever women worked some convenience to keep the baby from the danger of the ground would be a necessity. Peasant and native craft to-day show many of the cradles of bark and wicker that could be suspended from a bough or a roof rafter when not carried by the mother, and which probably resemble the ancestors of the mediaeval cradle. Although there a many detailed descriptions of these, only one authentic cradle made before the Tudor Renaissance seems to have survived. This is the London Museum and was most likely made during the end the Wars of the Roses (about 146o). It rocks freely between two end-posts. This type gave way to the kind that was mounted upon "rockers", and these were made until Queen Anne's time, when the older suspended cot was again reverted to. This continued until the present fixed cot was introduced.

Things to do in the Tracing of the Origins of the Style Known as Early American Colonial Furniture

1. Make a miniature draw-top table or a miniature gate-leg table correct in construction and detail, to serve as a fireside, coffee o supper table.
2. Start a section of your drawings with the metal work used in the making of wooden furniture. This can be arranged as "hinges", locks and fastenings, "handles" and "strengthening pieces". Be careful to date these as far as possible.
3. Make a series of specimen wooden hinges, including the pin hinge of the twelfth-century chest, the pivot of the gate-leg table, and the interlocking hinge of the Pembroke table.
4. Make a study of the illustrations in the book, noting the method of decoration applied to each piece of furniture, i.e.
   carving : flat, round, naturalistic, conventional ;
   inlay : string or band, panel, natural, geometrical, materials used ;
   veneer : plain, quartered, parquetry, marquetry ;
   painting.
5. Start to draw, and study articles of wooden furniture not dealt with in this list, i.e. screens of various kinds, wall-brackets, picture-frames and mirror-frames. mirrors for dressing table use, lamp-stands, trays, etc.
6. Add to your collections of cuttings any representations of good modern furniture, collect the catalogues of good firms, get from the library such publications as the "Studio Year Book of Decorative".