{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O372232"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O372232/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2015HP3680/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2015HP3680/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2015HP3680","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2015HP3658","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK3507","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK3508","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK3774","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK3776","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK3775","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2025PK3777","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O372232/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O372232","accessionNumber":"W.51-1949","objectType":"Bed","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"The bed consists of a pair of fluted doric columns, with bulbous turnings rising from pedestals to the front, and the bedhead is of elaborate de Vries type architectural style with niches, cornice complete with a pair of obelisks, consoles and five panels enclosing painted and carved coats of armsl, three above and two below. The columns and bed head support an entablature, the frieze of which is painted with stylized acanthus and interrupted by consoles and grotesque masks surmounted by a brcketed cornice. The ceiling of the bed is divided into seven compartmented panels or coffers with bracketed detail, each painted with a coat of arms.\r\n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oak","id":"AAT12264"}],"techniques":[{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"},{"text":"painting","id":"x30598"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Oak, carved and painted","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"},{"text":"Woodwork","id":"THES48877"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2015HP3680","2015HP3658","2025PK3507","2025PK3508","2025PK3774","2025PK3776","2025PK3775","2025PK3777"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES360716"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"003","id":"THES360716"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"M","id":"THES296974"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Headboard","id":"AAT40447"}],[{"text":"Tester","id":"AAT40453"}],[{"text":"Post","id":"AAT1609"}],[{"text":"Post","id":"AAT1609"}],[{"text":"side rail","id":"AAT251146"}],[{"text":"side rail","id":"AAT251146"}],[{"text":"footposts","id":"AAT40445"}],[{"text":"Headboard","id":"AAT40447"}],[{"text":"Tester","id":"AAT40453"}],[{"text":"hardware","id":"AAT33260"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"England","id":"x28826"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1500-1620","earliest":"1500-01-01","latest":"1620-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"\tBequeathed by Mrs Graham Rees-Mogg","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"85","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"70","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"88","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Size (from catalogue) H. 7' 1\", W.5' 10\", D. 7' 4\"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Bequeathed by Mrs Graham Rees-Mogg (registered papers 49/934).\r\nOn loan to Tamworth Castle, Staffordshire from 11/05/1983 to February 2026.\r\n\r\nSaid to have been bought in 1922 from Mallett, who had purchased it from another branch of the Rees-Mogg family at Cholwell House, Temple Cloud, Somerset. H. Clifford Smith (Burlington Magazine, vol. XLV, 1924, pp.66-72) who dated it c.1610, stated that the bed came originally from Chewton House, Chewton Mendip, Somerset. The principal coats of arms on the bed-head and underside of the tester are said to be Keynes, Cooper and Gilbert, the other 13 of allied families. It has been suggested - rather doubtfully - that the original owner of the bed was probably George Cooper of Wytcomb (or Widcomb) - about whom almost nothing seems to be known- who married Dorothy Gilbert, whose mother was Anne Keynes of Compton Pauncefoot.\n\n","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Bed, English, 1500-1620, carved oak","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"H, Clifford Smith, 'A Jacobean Bedstead'. Burlington Magazine, August 1924, vol. XLV no. 257, pp. 66-72\r\n\nThe subject of the decoration of English furniture of the sixteenth and seventeenth century by means of paint was dealt with in the BURLINGTON MAGAZINE Of December, 1917. Attention was there drawn to the well-known fact that during the Middle Ages colour was universal not only for stonework and sculpture but for furniture and for woodwork generally. At the period of the Renaissance the use in this country of paint in definite colour schemes for the decoration of woodwork seems to have been somewhat less frequent. The most prominent part in the production of colour in the house was then played by the upholsterer, whose fancy ran riot in the direction of rich chair coverings and cushions of damask or cut velvet, or silks elaborately ornamented with needlework; and these formed a supplement to the gay hangings and tapestries which hung upon the walls. There is evidence from records to prove that painted ornamentation, together with devices and coats-of-arms blazoned in gold and colours, was applied to the plaster-work of walls and ceilings. It is clear that at the same time paint was used in a decorative manner on interior woodwork and on articles of furniture as well.\n\r\nVery few examples of panelling painted with decorative designs have survived, owing to the common habit in the eighteenth century of covering interior woodwork, both old and new, with uniform coats of paint. As far as actual furniture of Elizabethan and Jacobean date is concerned, the number of examples enriched in this manner is even smaller. The existence, therefore, of an important piece of Jacobean furniture, in the form of a bedstead richly painted with designs and coats of arms, is a fact of no little importance in connexion with the history of the subject. \n\r\nThe bedstead in question formerly belonged to Mr. W. W. Rees-Mogg, of Cholwell House, Temple Cloud, Somerset, and is said to have come originally from Chewton House, Chewton Mendip, in the same county. It is now the property of Mrs. Graham Rees-Mogg, of Clifford Manor, Stratford-on-Avon. Apart from its painted decoration, the bedstead possesses exceptional merits from the point of view of design. In elegance of proportion and simplicity of character it represents, in its best and purest manner the Jacobean style of about the year 1610—the approximate date when it was executed [PLATE I, B]. The posts, which support the canopy in front are particularly refined, and instead of the usual elaborate bulbs, we find vase-shaped columns of an uncommon and graceful character surmounted by tapering, fluted shafts [PLATE II, D]. The bed-stock itself on which the pallet lies, is, as is often the case with Elizabethan and early Jacobean examples, detached from the posts, so as to allow curtains to be drawn together round it within the posts. The head, with its three niches, bracketed shelf-rail and triple-arched compartments above, is, a choice example of architectural designing [PLATE I. A]. The ceiling of the tester is divided into five panels, each bordered with dentils [PLATE II, E]. The cornice moulding is supported by dentils and finely carved corbels similar to those upon the back, while the frieze beneath it is further decorated at intervals with carved lions' masks [PLATE II, c]. The tester is 6 feet wide and 7 feet 3 inches deep, and the whole structure is 7 feet 2 inches high.\n\r\nThe bedstead throughout is of oak, which on the unpainted parts is pale in colour, and is in singularly perfect preservation. Wherever the painted decoration occurs it is executed on a background of dark chocolate colour. The paintings consist, in addition to an interesting series of coats-of-arms, of a variety of floral and conventional patterns. On the bases of the posts are sprays of violets and green leaves [PLATE II, D]. The three arches of the upper part of the back have yellow daisies and columbines with green foliage, the flutes and stop-flutes of the pilasters are green, and the pinnacles have arabesques and red berries. The shelf frieze has honeysuckle and columbines alternately, while the carved acanthus brackets are in green. The three niches below are painted with green trees and red berries, and the sunk pilaster panels which flank them have arabesque green foliage and berries [PLATE I, A]. The frieze of the tester has honeysuckle and columbines on the outside and scrolling vine leaves within; and the brackets of the cornice are painted green and yellow [PLATE II, c].\n\r\nThe coats-of-arms are arranged in the following manner. In each of the three arched compartments at the head of the bed is a shield carved in relief and painted [PLATE I, A]. That in the centre (No. 1) forms a full achievement, consisting of a shield, helmet, crest and mantling. The shield is: <i>Gules, a bend engrailed between six lioncels rampant or; on the bend in chief a crescent sable, for difference</i>. It is surmounted by an esquire's helmet, and placed on a wreath of colours is the following crest: <i>a saracen king's head sable, wreathed about the temples, azure and argent, and crowned or</i>. These are the actual arms of  the original owner of the bed—a member of the family of Cooper.\n\r\nThe shields on either side of this are enclosed in carved frames or cartouches of Jacobean scrollwork painted yellow, that on the left (No. 2) being the arms of Keynes, and on the right (No. 3) the arms of Gilbert. These shields probably represent the families of the two successive wives of the owner of the bed.\r\nThe remaining coats of arms are all painted on the flat and not carved. In the spandrels of the arches, above the carved shields, are four small shields (Nos. 4 to 7), representing respectively Portman, Crosse, Orchard, and Phelps of Montacute.\n\r\nIn the lower panels of the head are two larger shields (Nos. 8 and 9) in scrollwork of similar design to the carved ones above, but painted in green and silver, and containing the arms of Kingsmill and Blaeker, respectively.\r\nOn the undergide of the canopy [PLATE II, E] are the following :— \r\nIn the centre panel: 10, Cooper (with crest as No. 1) impaling Gilbert (as No. 3)—the alliance achievement of the owner of the bed and his second wife.\r\nAbove, on the left: 11, Keynes (as No. 2) quartered with Whiting and another—probably the quartered shield of the father of the first wife of the owner of the bed. On the right : 12, Gilbert quartering Blaker (as No. 9) impaling Le Strange—apparently the quarterly coat of the father of the second wife impaling that of her mother.\r\nBelow, on the left : 13, Trivett. On the right : 14, Manningford.\n\r\nLastly, on either side of the centre shield are two subsidiary shields, 15 and 16, one for Pauncefote, of Compton Pauncefote, the other for Lucy of Charlecote.\n\r\nThe identity of the actual owner of the bed cannot, unfortunately, be determined. He was probably a collateral of the branch of the family of Cooper, from which sprang the present Earls of of Shaftesbury, but he cannot have been a member of that branch, for the ring on the bend upon his shield shows him to be a fifth son; while his contemporary, Sir John Cooper, who was created a baronet in 1622 and married Anne, the Ashley heiress, was himself an only son. His crest, too, it is important to note, is not that borne by the Coopers, Earls of Shaftesbury.\n\r\nThough some slight trace of painted designs occurs here and there on bedsteads of this period, none has survived, as far as our knowledge goes, so richly adorned as the present example.\tSome interesting records, however, exist of the decoration of beds with colours and coats-of-arms. Thus, in the Account Book of John Talbot, of Grafton Manor, Worcestershire, for the year 1569 it is stated that \" John Davyes the pentare of Worcester \" was paid \"for the varnishinge of a walnottree bedd in the gallerye under chamber and for laying my armes in collers.\" Elsewhere we find the owner of Grafton employing William Hall, of Droitwich, to varnish \"a bedd with walnottree collers, besides gylding and peantinge ii cheres and a cornice for the great bedde.\" A full description of an elaborate bedstead belonging to the Earl of Leicester is contained in the Inventory of Kenilworth Castle of 1584. The owner's arms in this case were elaborately wrought in embroidery, but it is recorded that the woodwork of the bed was of walnut tree, with the pillars \" redd and varnished.\"\n\r\nAmongst actual articles of early furniture painted with coats-of-arms two examples dating from the same period may be mentioned. One of these is the oak day-bed of about the year 1600, in the Long Gallery at Hardwick. The coats-of-arms painted on its panelled ends are those of Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrews¬bury, together with the arms of Cavendish and Talbot, surmounted by a countess' coronet. The woodwork, like that of the Clifford Manor bedstead, is painted a deep chocolate colour and is further decorated with floral arabesques in white, red and green. The other object, the most elaborate of its kind, is the organ-harpsichord in the Victoria and Albert Museum from Ightham Mote, Kent, dating from 1599. The whole surface of this is painted with a series of coats-of-arms in gold and colours and enriched with strapwork and other ornament."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Victor Chinnery, <i>Oak Furniture: The British Tradition. A History of Early Furniture in the British Isles and New England</i>, rev. ed. (Woodbridge: ACC Art Books, 2016), figs. 2:231, p. 167\n\nJoined tester bedstead. English; probably Somerset. Oak, painted in colours, early seventeenth century. The arms are those of Cooper, Gilbert and other familes; the upper register carved and painted, whilst the lower are painted on flat panels.\n\n'...painted furniture was also found at a less elevated level, as shown by the tester bed.. This carved and painted bedstead is conceived and executed on a restrained architectural scale, and the composition of the headboard recalls similar treatments often found in mantelpieces of the same period (such as the fireplace at Yarnton Manor, near Oxford.)"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"BEDSTEAD\r\nOak, carved and painted.The hangings are modern.\r\nEnglish, West Country; about 1600.\r\nBequeathed by Mrs Graham Rees-Mogg\r\n\r\nThe bedhead is in an elaborate architectural style; the obelisks and consoles with grotesque masks at each side are particularly characteristic of this period. Yet, despite this, the proportions of this bed are altogether more elegant than earlier examples. The principle coats of arms are those of Keynes, Cooper and Gilbert; the other thirteen arms are those of allied families. The original owner of the bedstead was probably George Cooper of Wytcomb (or Widcomb), who married Dorothy Gilbert, whose mother was Anne Keynes of Compton Pauncefoot.\r\n\r\n[before 1985]\r\n","date":{"text":"1/1/1984","earliest":"1984-01-01","latest":"1984-01-01"}}],"partNumbers":["W.51:1-1949","W.51:2-1949","W.51:3-1949","W.51:4-1949","W.51:5-1949","W.51:6-1949","W.51:7-1949","W.51:8-1949","W.51:9-1949","W.51:10-1949"],"accessionNumberNum":"51","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1949,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LW9270"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-06-01","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":false}}