{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O321236"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O321236/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017KB5950/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2017KB5950/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2017KB5950","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5951","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5952","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5953","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5954","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5955","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5956","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5957","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5958","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5959","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5960","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5961","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KB5962","copyright":"©Victoria & Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O321236/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O321236","accessionNumber":"W.18 to C-1911","objectType":"Set of bed posts","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Turned and carved posts were an important element in Gothic and Tudor woodwork.  They could appear in panelling, or on the front of wooden houses, as well as parts of beds.  Often ancient posts have been said to be from beds when this cannot be proven, but this set does seem to be clearly from a bed, with two of the posts showing a cutaway at the back where a headboard might have been fitted. The other two posts show no such evidence and could have been show posts at the foot of the bed, as on the more famous Great Bed of Ware (W.47 -1931).  When a bed had show posts, the foot of the bed was supported on short, plain posts that stood behind the show posts, which could be seen clearly with their decorative carving clear of any drapery.","physicalDescription":"Two pairs of carved oak bed posts connected by a short, modern rail, added for display purposes. Two of the posts show square-sectioned bases and are cut away inn one corner for the full height, suggesting that they were the head posts, perhaps with a panelled headboard set between them. These recesses show attached fillets of rough wood.  The other two posts show octagonal plinths and are fully decorated. These must have been the show posts at the foot of a bed, the bedstock of which was supported by short foot posts set within the show posts to support the side and foot rails of the bed. \nThe head posts (W.18-1911 and W.18A-1911) show tall mortises cut in the foot face of the bases, to receive the side rails of the bed. At the top of the square-sectioned bases (70 cm from ground level) the posts are chamfered into an octagon that steps into a concave, octagonal collar with a rounded fillet above.  Above this the posts are turned and carved, with a slight outward taper towards the cenral bosses.  The shafts are carved with a lattice of wide, dished mouldings, decorated with cut or punched motifs of paired triangles at regular intervals, giving the appearance of butterflies. The central boss is carved with eight vertical sections, as three bunched collars, the central one wider than the others. Each segment of the collars is carved with an oval hole, giving the appearance that the whole is in two layers. Leaves are carved on the upper collars, with a flattened pomegranate suggested between them. At the top, each post returns to an octagonal setion, with two rounded fillets separated by two concave friezes of different widths, below a plain octagonal section forming the top of the post. \nThe other two posts (show posts, W.18B-1911 and W.18C-1911) are similarly decorated but have octagonal bases. At about 53 cm above ground level these are shaped into a pear-shaped section (following the octagonal form). On the show posts the trellis carving starts at a slightly lower point than on the head posts but the central bosses are more or less level. The bosses on the show posts show pomegranates with seeds, in place of the recesses on the head posts. The tops of the show posts show a slightly lower plain octagon on the top of each than on the head posts and these may have been reduced. One posts shows two forged L-shaped iron hooks for curtain rods but on the other post the section that would have held these has been broken off. \n\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oak","id":"AAT12264"}],"techniques":[{"text":"Turning","id":"AAT53158"},{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"},{"text":"joinery","id":"x36614"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Turned and carved oak","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"}],"styles":[{"text":"Renaissance","id":"AAT21140"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2017KB5950","2017KB5951","2017KB5952","2017KB5953","2017KB5954","2017KB5955","2017KB5956","2017KB5957","2017KB5958","2017KB5959","2017KB5960","2017KB5961","2017KB5962"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES344505"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES344505"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341072"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES344505"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Bed post","id":""}],[{"text":"Bed post","id":""}],[{"text":"Bed post","id":""}],[{"text":"Bed post","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1509-1547","earliest":"1509-01-01","latest":"1547-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"","value":"","unit":"","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"All posts 199cm high\r\nHead posts WD: 10.5 x 10cm; foot posts WD: 13.5 x 14cm","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Purchased from T. Charbonnier, The Art Gallery, Lynmouth, Devon, for £90.10.s. See Nominal File MA/1/C1032/1, RF 10/4703, 11/1412.  The vendor made reference to the similarity of these to the early beds illustrated in Shaw's <i>Ancient Furniture </i>(1836), plate XXXVI.  No earlier history of the posts is known.  \nThe dating of the posts is related to the life of Catherine  (or Katherine) of Aragon, whose symbol was the pomegranate. She was the first wife of Henry VIII, who married her in 1509 and divorced her in 1533. She died in 1536. The symbol would not have been used before 1509 but could have remained in current use for some years after her fall from favour.  The trellis design of lozenges on the posts is a gothic form of decoration but the form of posts, with classical plinths and capitals suggests a date no earlier than the 16th century. ","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Two pairs of carved oak bed posts connected by a short, modern rail, added for display purposes. All four show shafts carved with a trellis of lozenges, each decorated with a leaf.  In the centre of each shaft is a turned and carved collar representing a flattened pomegranate, with leaves above and below.  On the two foot posts this element shows pomegranate seeds, not visible on the head posts. The posts have octagonal, moulded capitals, the bases on the two foot post similarly decorated, while the feet of the head posts are square sections and are not ornamented. \r\n","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Charles Tracy, English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork (London, 1988), cat. no. 330, p. 201.\n\r\n'TWO PAIRS OF POSTS. Each has an octagonal moulded capital;, a shaft carved with lozenges enclosing leaves and separated by grooved bands decorated with notches, and, near the middle, a pomegranate (the pomegranates on one pair of posts being represented in seed); and an octagonal moulded base, the same pair of posts being further carved with a stop ornament on the four outer angles. Two posts have grooves into which Wainscot panelling was fitted; on the capitals are iron hooks and rings (PL.129).\r\nOak. First quarter of 16th century\r\n196 x 10.2 cm\r\nMus. No. W.18-1911\r\nThese are possibly the components of a four-poster bed (Macquoid and Edwards (Percy Macquoid and Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture from the Middle Ages to the late Georgian Period, 3 vols, London, I 8 II, 1924; III, 1927)Vol I, p.22 and Cescinsky and Gribble, (H. Cescinsky and E.R. Gribble, Early English Furniture and Woodwork, 2 vols, London, 1922. Vol. II, FIGS. 387-390). There was in the previous catalogue, it must be said, a regrettable tendency to attribute all the museums collection of assorted late medieval posts to beds. In fact, we cannot be certain that any of these posts were associated with this category of furniture. Posts were regularly used on screens, and in one case at least on a font, at Trunch, Norfolk (FIG. 58). The presence of mortising and pegging does not prove anything. Perhaps the most telling indicators are the proportions and height of the posts. The height of the plinth is usually greater in proportion to the whole on screen posts than it is in this case. It was not uncommon in the past for such posts to be assembled with unconnected medieval Woodwork to form a medieval ‘four-poster’. The Saffron Walden Museum bed (Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture. The British Tradition, Woodbridge, 1979, p.388) is probably just such a conglomeration of disparate parts. For a discussion of the inventorial evidence for beds in the Middle Ages see Eames 1977, (P. Eames, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century, London, 1977.p.73-93.)'\r\n"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Cescinsky, Herbert and Ernest Gribble, <i>Early English Furniture and Woodwork</i>. II vols. London: Waverley Books, 1922, vol. I, p. 356, fig. 388, p. 361"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Aymer Valance, 'Early Furniture - XVI Beds (continued)', <i>The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs</i>, vol. 25, no. 134 (May 1914), pp. 119+122-123.\r\nValance argues that the presence of the pomegranate motif, which was often associated with Catherine of Aragon, might suggest that the date of the posts could not be after 1533."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Ralph Edwards, 'Beds I - steps in the evolution of the Tudor bed'.  <i>Country Life</i>, 25 March 1922, pp. 413-415, illustrated as fig. 1, p. 413."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"H. Clifford Smith, <i>Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of English Furniture and Woodwork, vol. I, Gothic and Early Tudor,</i> London, HMSO, 1929, nos. 338-341."}],"production":"\r\n","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["W.18-1911","W.18A-1911","W.18B-1911","W.18C-1911"],"accessionNumberNum":"18","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1911,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Bed post [1]","Bed post [2]","Bed post [3]","Bed post [4]"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-09-16","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":true}}