This piece of furniture looks like a bookcase, but originally it was made to contain a bed, which folded up inside (we know it was once a folding bed because 18th-century bills for repairs exist). It was later converted into a wardrobe. A folding bed allowed a bedroom to be used as an extra living room during the day. This bed is part of a group of furniture that has been preserved because it belonged to David Garrick (1717-1779), the celebrated actor. It was made for the guest bedroom at his country villa at Hampton, Middlesex. The room also contained armchairs, a sofa, a dressing-table and a wardrobe, all painted blue and white to match with blue silk upholstery and curtains.
Physical description
This was originally a cabinet bedstead, sometimes called a 'press bed', but the bed was later taken out and it was converted into a wardrobe. Two centrally-opening mirrored doors are set above a set of drawers; a cresting of an urn and swags. The cabinet is painted white, with decoration of classical motifs in blue. A guilloche moulding runs above the drawers, and the panel decoration has indented corners with paterae.
Place of Origin
London, England (made)
Date
1768-1770 (made)
Artist/maker
chippendale, born 1718 - died 1779 (supplier)
Materials and Techniques
Carved and painted pine, with mirror glass and brass handles
Dimensions
Height: 249 cm, Width: 165 cm, Depth: 69 cm
Object history note
This piece of furniture was supplied in 1768 to David Garrick, the celebrated actor, for his country retreat at Hampton, Surrey, about fourteen miles outside London. It was made by the cabinet-making firm of Thomas Chippendale, which Garrick also employed to furnish his London house in the Adelphi. Chippendale supplied much of the furniture for the house, including a green and white painted suite of furniture for Garrick's own bedroom. This cabinet bedstead formed part of a suite of furniture for the 'best bedroom', or guest room, at the front of the house overlooking the Thames. It was intended to look like a bookcase, so that the bedroom could be used as an extra reception room during the day; it was referred to as a 'bookcase bedstead' in a later Chippendale account for a repair, and in a 1769 account for refurbishing the bedclothes. The room also contained armchairs, a sofa, a dressing table, and a wardrobe, all painted blue and white to match, with blue silk upholstery and curtains. Painted furniture is very easily damaged and much from this date must have been discarded; this furniture was preserved, with its associated documentation such as bills and inventories, because of its association with David Garrick.
During 19th century the bed was repainted green and white and converted into a wardrobe. It was acquired as such by the V&A in 1917, and it was not until 1970 when the inventory of the villa taken after Garrick's death in 1779 came to light that its true function was realized. The later overpainting has been removed to reveal the original surface treatment.
Mr and Mrs Garrick employed their friend Robert Adam (1728-92) to make the necessary architectural improvements to the house, and it was decorated to the height of fashion; Mrs Delany, celebrated artist and correspondent, visited in 1770 and wrote: 'The house is singular...and sems to owe its prettiness and elegance to her [Mrs Garrick's] good taste...on the whole it has the air of belonging to a genius'.
Historical context note
Cabinet bedsteads, also known as 'press beds' (in the form of a clothes press), were common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the relatively small size of even fashionable houses in London created a market for convertible furniture.Chippendale had also supplied several for the lesser bedrooms at Garrick's London house in the Adelphi.
This and other furniture for Garrick's villa was 'japanned', or painted, in keeping with the rural and informal atmosphere, rather than veneered or gilded. It is decorated with the attenuated classical motifs characteristic of Robert Adam's later work, unlike the furniture for Garrick's own bedroom which is painted white with light-hearted chinoiserie motifs in green. Painted decoration rivalled marquetry as a fashionable finish for furniture in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Descriptive line
Cabinet bedstead, supplier Thomas Chippendale, London, 1768-1770
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Wilk, Christopher, ed. Western Furniture 1350 to the Present Day. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1996. 230p., pp. 120--21, ill. ISBN 085667463X.
Gilbert, C. The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale. London: Studio Vista, 1978, p.237
Galbraith, L. 'Garrick's Furniture at Hampton', Apollo, vol.XCVI, no.125 (July 1972), pp. 46-55.
Materials
Brass; Pine; Mirror glass
Techniques
Painted; Carved
Subjects depicted
Urn; Rosette; Festoon
Categories
Furniture
Collection code
FWK
