{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O131450"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O131450/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BT7526/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2008BT7526/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2008BT7526","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O131450","accessionNumber":"W.25-1984","objectType":"Bed","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"A painted and gilded bed with red hangings, modelled on the 'St Ursula' bed in Carpaccio's <i>Vision of St Ursula</i>.  The bed is narrow, for a single occupant, as Carpaccio's image is.  The headboard and lower footboard show round-arched tops. These and other elements of the woodwork are painted a peacock green with gilded mouldings and gilded lion-paw feet (mostly oil gilding but with some areas that appear to be water gilt). The head- and foot-posts continue above the board height as slim turned posts, gilded, with flattened round finials above the tester rails of an open tester.  The outer edges of this are hung with valances of scarlet cotton damask (cotton or cotton and rayon), in the form of <i>lambrequins</i>, the lower edges of which are rounded and finished with hanging red tassels. The upper edges are finished with a gold braid. The counterpane is of the same damask, with the top surface and pillow area outlined in the same braid.\n\nThe headboard consists of two flanking square columns, fluted above the paw feet (that point towards the foot of the bed) and topped with square, upright leaf capitals. The fluting on the front faces stops just above the point at which the side rails are tenoned into the posts. The columns support a straight, full-width, moulded cornice (fully gilded). This supports a half-oval cresting, with a gilded edge moulding that ends on either side with upward S-scrolls. The panel of the cresting is a single panel of hardboard, painted peacock green. The principal panel of the headboard is made up in three panelled sections, a full-width section above two half-width sections. The top panel slots into the underside of the cornice, the inner side of each column and the top of a horizontal mid-rail (approximately 7 cm high), which itself is tenoned into the columns. The two lower panels slot into the underside of the mid-rail and the top of the lower rail (height 11 cm), as well as into the inner face of the columns and both sides of a centrail muntin (7.3 cm wide). The bottom rail is dowelled into the inner face of the columns, the bottom of the rail set 26 cm above floor level. The foot faces of the columns are drilled just below the lower rail with 3 holes each, the upper and lower for the dowels to the side rails, the central one, with a captured nut for the bed screws which run in from the inside surface of the side rails. \n\nAbove the cornice of the headboard the columns are continued as slim, turned posts with a plain, turned column at top and bottom and an enlarged, flattened knop approximately 24 cm above the cornice of the headboard. The columns taper slightly and a central dowel extends 2 cm above the upper collar, to locate in the underside of the tester rail. \n\nThe footboard is necessarily taller than that shown in the Carpaccio painting, to allow for a bed base and mattress (now missing). It is of similar construction to that of the headboard, with a solid panel between carved posts, although for the footboard these are carved on each side as pairs of addorsed C-scrolls (2 on each side, as seen from the sides), raised on double paw feet on each side (pointing forwards and backwards). The paws are gilded as are the outline mouldings of the posts.  Between the two posts is what appears to be an entirely separate panel in the form of a picture frame with a half-oval cresting, the lower frame with an enlarged fillet compared with those on the sides and top. Between this frame and the posts is a plain wooden infill that appears to act as a long tenon connecting the posts and frame. The panel within the frame is of hardboard and the edges fit into a rebate on the back of the frame so that it lies flush with the back of the frame. The head faces of the columns are drilled just below the lower rail with 3 holes each, the upper and lower for the dowels to the side rails, the central one, with a captured nut for the bed screws which run in from the inside surface of the side rails. \n\nAbove the carved posts the uprights are turned and carved in close imitation of the Carpaccio bed, with a bell-shaped base carved with a ropework collar below stylised, down-facing leaves. Above the leaf-work the posts are decorated in turn with an ovolo collar, a large flattened globe, a socle-shaped section with a beaded lower edge and an ovoid vase with a stepped ovolo collar above it. The tapering, turned sections above these vase sections are set mid-way with a flattened globe between two collars and with a plain collar at the top of the post. Like the headposts, they finish with a narrow, 2 cm projection that serve as dowels for the tester frame. \n\nThe side rails appear to be of mahogany or a similar hardwood. The outer faces are recessed in the centre to leave a narrow (1 cm) fillet at top and bottom, gilded against the painted ground. The gilding of the top fillet continues across the top surface of the rail. The rails are dowelled into the head- and footposts with two dowels at each end, projecting 2 cm.  These are of commercial dowelling. The footposts are cut away on the head face to a depth of about 3 mm to allow the whole rail to be housed in them. The inner faces of the side rails are cut away at either end approximately 2 cm above the lower edge with a long, tapering slot for bed screws or bolts.  The four of these are black-japanned iron, with spherical, pierced, heads. Two cross-struts of mahogany or hardwood, painted black, are set between the side rails at 30.2 cm from the head and 28 cm from the foot of the bed. They are joined to the side rails with haunched tenons. These rails are each set with two French castors of cast-iron and wood.  These have base plates of iron of a roughly 8-shape, 15 x 6.6 cm, these attached by 6 screws through a shallow wooden section just larger than the base plate. The castors are 19 cm high and the wheels, of <i>lignum vitae</i>, are 9.5 cm in diameter. The castors are japanned black, with tripod supports emerging from the base, surrounding the pivoting post which connects with the wheel structures and allows them to pivot. There are no visible marks on the castors. \n\nThe tester rail is of slight construction, the head and foot rails tenoned into the side rails. The tester rail fits over a dowel at the top of each bedpost and is secured by a finial in the form of a flattened globe of gilded wood. The rails of the tester are painted peacock green on the underside and the side faces.  All the rails have been cut down from a wider piece that remains at full width at each end, to allow the creation of stronger joints. At the PR corner of the head rail and the PL corner of the foot rail  are quarter-circle blocks to reinforce the corners. \n\nThe head and side valances are made as a continuous band approximately 5 cm high 730 cm long. Hanging from this are round-ended <i>lambrequins</i> (12.7 cm wide and 26 cm deep), spaced 3 cm apart, with a cord and tassel hanging another 14cm from the curved tip of the <i>lambrequin</i>. At the foot is a separate valance. These are made of buckram faced on both sides with damask. The covering of the outer face has been folded over onto the inner surface and the lining stitched over this close to the edge. The outer face is set at the top with a gold-thread braid. 3.2 cm deep, woven with a meander design of grapes and a vine. The tassels hang from a twisted cord and are formed over a wooden core with a globe-shaped upper section covered in silk floss (spun, not twisted). The neck of the wooden core is bound with more floss, over the top of which one of the twisted threads from the fringe of the tassel is worked in a deep herringbone stitch to created a chevron pattern around the circumference of the bound neck. Below the collar the skirt of the tassel is composed of fine twisted threads cut approximately 6.5 cm long \n\nThe tester has always been open, with the valances as the only textile element. The counterpane is a simple rectangle of damask, with the bed area and the pillow area outlined in gold braid. ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Scott, Geoffrey","id":"A21083"},"association":{"text":"designer","id":"x36960"},"note":""},{"name":{"text":"Southgate, M.","id":"A21471"},"association":{"text":"upholsterer","id":"AAT25407"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"wood","id":"AAT11914"},{"text":"hardboard","id":"AAT14203"}],"techniques":[{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},{"text":"gilded","id":"AAT53789"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Painted and gilded wood and hardboard","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2008BT7526"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341765"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341765"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES344191"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Bed headboard","id":""}],[{"text":"footboard","id":""}],[{"text":"bed parts, finials and bolts","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Great Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1922","earliest":"1922-01-01","latest":"1922-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"235","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"overall","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"160","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"approx., overall","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"220","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"approx., overall","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"29","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"To top of side bed rails","note":""},{"dimension":"","value":"","unit":"","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"1","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Stamped on lower front face of PL column to footboard"},{"content":"2","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Stamped on lower front face of pr column to footboard"},{"content":"3","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Stamped on lower front face of PL column to headboard"},{"content":"4","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Stamped on lower front face of PR column to headboard"}],"objectHistory":"The design is modelled on the St Ursula bed in the Carpaccio painting \"Vision of St Ursula\" of about 1495, in the Accademia, Venice. The painter and theorist John Ruskin, who first saw the painting  in 1869, described it at length in <i>Fors Clavigera</i> (1872). In 1876 he was allowed to study and copy the painting in a private room. He came to identify St. Ursula with his beloved Rose La Touche, who had died mad in 1875. In 1897 Edwin Lutyens sketched a similar bed for his future wife, Lady Emily Lytton, and in about 1914 he had two made for his daughters. He also used the form for a bed in Queen Mary's doll's house, completed in 1924. It is interesting that the same model which had inspired Ruskin's passionate moralising and Lutyens's romantic vision of domestic bliss was followed by Geoffrey Scott (1885-1929) secretary and librarian to the celebrated art historian Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) and, as author of <i>The Architecture of Humanism</i> (1914), the leading English proponent of a classical aesthetic inspired by the Renaissance and Baroque. This style of architecture and decoration was the dominant taste of the English intelligentia in the 1920s.\r\n\nThe bed was designed for the bedroom of William Heywood Haslam in his London house, 8 Hanover Terrace. According to Nicholas Haslam, the son of it original owner, Geoffrey Scott used to stay in the mews house at Hanover Terrace when he was in London.  The bed was moved to Great Hundridge Manor, Great Missenden, Bucks in 1927, almost as soon as the Haslam's bought that William and Mary house. Great Hundridge was modernised by the architect Clough Williams-Ellis for Haslam and the antique dealer Dorothy Warren supplied much of the furniture. At Great Hundridge the colouring of the bed was well suited to the painted imitation of scagliola that decorated the bedroom in which it was set and which dated from the late-seventeenth century. This very unusual decoration was described in 1941 by <i>Country Life</i> as 'umber, burnt Siena, ochre and Indian red'.  In the illustration of the bed in the <i>Country Life </i>article (see refs.), it was shown with a Paisley shawl used as the bedcover. According to Nicholas Haslam, Scott was responsible for the decorations and designed at least one other bed and other furniture, as well as advising on the acquisition of furniture, together with his lover, the antique dealer Dorothy Warren. Most of the upholstery was done by a Mr Southgate.\n\r\nThis bed was lent to the Museum from 18 August 1983 by Nicholas Haslam and acquired by the Museum in March 1984.  A note from Nicholas Haslam dated 30 August 1983 records that the valances may have been destroyed because they were 'completely rotted'. He continues 'Anyway , <u>none</u> of the tassels remained, but my brother remembers them as being the same read as the valence, in a dull silk. The valence itself was Venetian red silk, the same stuff inside and out, with a stiffened interlining. Simon asked me about the counter-pane, and luckily I saw my ancient mama on Friday, who remembers it clearly - and her memory is very good - as being the same stuff as the valence with a dull silver/gold inset braid - rather like the other ones that Scott used in the enclosed xeroxes [onRP], I suppose.'\r\n\r\nThe valances and counterpane were recreated by Seymour Furnishings, Upholsterers, London W.10.  The work was done by Mr G. Carter.\n\nIt is noted that a bed based on the same original was made for a bedroom in the house of Mrs William K. Vanderbilt and illustrated in <i>American Vogue</i> late August 1917 (title and pages to be checked). It was designed by Miss Barbara Rutherwood, later Mrs Cyril Hatch. The room was said to be decorated in in apricot, rose and mauve, accented with black.\n\nA chair copied from the same painting is in a private collection. \n\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"A painted and gilded bed with red hangings, modelled on the 'St Ursula' bed in Carpaccio's <i>Vision of St Ursula</i>","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Christopher Hussey, 'Great Hundridge Manor, Bucks - II. The Home of Mr William Heywood Haslam'. <u>Country Life</u>, Feb 22, 1941, vol LXXXIX, pp.166-170, the bed illustrated as fig. 4 on p. 167 and described on pp.169-170."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"'Haslam's Smart Move', <i>World of Interiors</i>, 1983 (check month), pp. 154-157."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Bed\r\nDesigned by Geoffrey Scott (1883-1929)\r\nBritish: 1922\r\nPainted and gilded wood, the hangings new\r\nLent by Nicholas Haslam.\r\nThis bed is based on one shown in Carpaccio's painting, \"The Dream of\r\nSt. Ursula\" (about 1495), in the Accademia in Venice. Ruskin, who\r\nfirst saw it in 1869 and described it at length in Fors Clavigera\r\n(1872), was in 1876 allowed to study and copy the painting in a\r\nprivate room. He came to identify St. Ursula with his beloved Rose\r\nLa Touche, who had died mad in 1875. In 1897 Edwin Lutyens sketched\r\na similar bed for his future wife, Lady Emily Lytton, and in about 1914\r\nhe had two made for his daughters. It is amusing that the same\r\nmodel which had inspired Ruskin's passionate moralising and Lutyens's\r\nromantic vision of domestic bliss was followed by Geoffrey Scott,\r\nsecretary and librarian to Bernard Berenson and, as author of The\r\nArchitecture of Humanism (1914), the leading English proponent\r\nof a classical aesthetic inspired by the Renaissance and Baroque.\r\nHis patron, William Heywood Haslam, also employed the architect\r\nClough Williams-Ellis.","date":{"text":"1983","earliest":"1983-01-01","latest":"1983-12-31"}},{"text":"BED\r\nDesigned by Geoffrey Scott (British, 1883-1929)\r\nPainted and gilded wood, modern hangings\r\n1922\r\n\r\nGeoffrey Scott was an architectural historian and connoisseur. This bed, designed for the London home of William Heywood Haslam, is closely based upon that in Carpaccio's <u>The Vision of St Ursula</u> in the collection of the Accademia in Venice. It is probable that Scott knew the beds based upon St Ursula's which Sir Edwin Lutyens had designed in 1914 for his daughters.\r\n\r\nW.25-1984","date":{"text":"1989-2006","earliest":"1989-01-01","latest":"2006-12-31"}}],"partNumbers":["W.25-1984","W.25:2-1984","W.25:3-1984"],"accessionNumberNum":"25","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1984,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Bed headboard","footboard","bed parts, finials and bolts"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-04-13","recordCreationDate":"2007-02-07","availableToBook":true}}