Fourposter Bed Gallery

The Dream, 1895. Creator: Aubrey Beardsley

The Dream, 1895. An androgynous figure with a wand gestures to an unseen person behind the bedcurtains. Belinda still her downy pillow pressed; Her guardian sylph prolonged the balmy rest; Twas he had summoned to her silent bed; The morning dream that hovered o'er her head'. Illustration for "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope, published privately by Leonard Smithers in 1896. Rape in this context refers not to sexual violence but to the theft and carrying away of a lock of hair, from the Latin rapere: to snatch, to grab, to carry off. From "The Best of Beardsley" edited by R. A. Walker, [The Bodley Head, London, 1948]

© Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

Bed frame designed by Henry Boyd, ca. 1840. Creator: Boyd Manufacturing Company

A wooden four poster bed frame with head board and foot board. The side rails screw into the frame providing greater strength and limited hiding places for vermin. This type of corded frame, invented by African-American inventor, carpenter, and a master mechanic Henry Boyd, is known as the "Boyd Bedstead." Boyd (1802-1866) was born a slave in Kentucky. His profits from his carpentry work allowed him to buy his own and his family's freedom

© Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Queen Elizabeth's State Bed, 1844. Creator: Unknown

Queen Elizabeth's State Bed, 1844. Four-poster bed at Burghley House, near Stamford, Lincolnshire. The house was built in the 16th century for William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I. This state bed has hangings of green velvet on a ground of gold tissue...The room is hung with tapestry, the subjects being Actseon and Diana, Bacchus and Ariadne, and Acis and Galatea. Queen Elizabeth is stated to have occupied the above state bed on her visit to her Lord High Treasurer'. From "Illustrated London News", 1844, Vol V

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images