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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



October, 1905 



Fig. 7 — Four-Poster Bedstead, with Carved Tebter 

 Built in 1795 



finest examples in this country. Its four posts are hand- 

 somely carved with garlands of flowers ; they support a tester, 

 which is also elaborately carved and decorated in gilt. 



Our forefathers liked to take their leisure, and the easy 

 lounge and luxurious bed are ever in evidence. The im- 

 portance (I had almost said the dignity) of the bed, during 

 the period of which I am treating, can hardly be overesti- 

 mated. The bed is sometimes mentioned apart from the 

 bedstead, but frequently the term is used to include the 

 bedstead and all its furnishings It must be remembered that 

 in Europe the bedchamber was a room of great importance, 

 for kings and queens often received their courtiers in their 

 sleeping apartments. The heavy, imposing four-poster was 

 both luxurious and beautiful. The framework, as in the 

 illustration presented, was usually handsomely carved, the 

 bed was of the softest down, the linen of the finest, and the 

 outer cover of a cloth of gold, or of some other costly ma- 

 terial, richly embroidered with heraldic designs. 



One instinctively wonders, in viewing any collection of old 

 furniture, whether the original possessor took the same pleas- 

 ure in it and had the same pride of it that every living owner 

 feels. They must have, one can but think, for these fine old 

 pieces have real intrinsic merit and interest of a very pene- 

 trating and absorbing sort. To have owned them must have 

 been a delight, for such it is now; to have lived with them 

 must have been a joy, for this is the sensation they 

 give to-day. 



Yet the modern mind can hardly place itself in the same 

 position as that of the contemporary of these pieces. We 

 enjoy them as we think the original owners must have 



enjoyed them, but to us they have an addi- 

 tional quality, which is inseparable from old ob- 

 jects of interest. Their very age endears them 

 to us, and this is a source of enjoyment from them 

 that the original owners could not have had. 



But we must believe their interest was always 

 great and very real. Their books and letters are 

 strewn with affectionate records of their furniture, 

 testifying to a lively appreciation of it. They 

 knew good things when they saw them, did these 

 old folk, and they had the rare advantage of hav- 

 ing good articles when they purchased the handi- 

 work of the furniture makers of the end of the 

 eighteenth century. Not all of it, of course, was 

 good; many of the old models are miracles of dis- 

 comfort, and put the strict constructionist to 

 shame for pure vagary of style; but there was 

 honest intent to please in much of this work, and 

 if the search for novelty of form and pattern led 

 the designer astray, the modern eye is apt to for- 

 give him because his work belongs to a past time, 

 every item of which has present day interest. 



Fig. 8 — A Secretary, Sometimes Called a Bureau-Bookcase 

 Built in 1770 



