Type of Antique Bedstead

Most of these bedsteads were undoubtedly in-tended to be used with curtains and valances. Often two sets of curtains were used-an outer and an inner-the latter to be drawn in winter for warmth. Silk, damask, calico, chintz, and linen were the usual materials.

Among the various styles of the middle of the eighteenth century we find the tent-bed and field bed. These are perhaps the oldest Colonial bedsteads you will have occasion to examine. The field-beds had light, curving bars overhead, in place of the heavy tester.. This was called a sweep, and when covered with draperies it produced somewhat the effect of a tent. The tent-beds had straight side and end bars. They were quite plain and inexpensive, little wood being used in their construction. The posts were usually slender and twisted or reeded.

In England, after 1740, a handsome bedstead was made, with slender plain or fluted posts, cabriole legs with a shell at the knee, and ball-and-claw feet. Sometimes the two legs at the head were straight and plain. Later Georgian variations of this style came to America, but few cabriole legs or ball-and-claw feet seem to have been in use here as early as 1750.

Later in the century came the more decided Georgian styles, though the hand of the Georgian cabinet-maker is less easily traced in old bedsteads than in chairs and tables. There were a number of miscellaneous mahogany four-posters, with slender fluted or carved posts, that are truly Georgian in style, and yet vary more or less from the well-known Georgian types.

Chippendale made bedsteads, but it is doubtful if there are many of his in this country, though his influence is to be traced here and there. His posts were tall and slender, and elaborately carved. A favorite design was a fluted column, with garlands of flowers and ribbons entwining the posts in raised carving. He apparently used the ball-and-claw foot but seldom on his bedsteads. His foot-boards and side pieces were carved and paneled, the head-boards being often plain. A well-known post design of Chippendale's was the clustered bamboos.

Bedsteads were designed by the Adam brothers. These were smaller and lighter than those of Chippendale, the posts lower, and the carving less elaborate. Such ornamentation as they used was Classic in style.
Heppelwhite's bedposts were delicate and attenuated, growing very slender at the top. He used less carving than Chippendale. Delicate beading, carved rosettes, and drapery festoons constituted most of his decorations, aside from his typical fluting.

Sheraton's designs are in his usual simple, re-strained style. His posts were somewhat larger than Heppelwhite's. Few of his finer inlaid bedsteads found their way to this country. In fact, authentic bedsteads by the greater Georgian cabinet-makers are so rare that the average furniture-collector will be hardly likely to run across them, and should be wary of pieces whose owners attach to them one of these great names. Their work, however, influenced that of their contemporaries who made most of the bedsteads of the day. It need hardly be pointed out that the whole subject of Georgian bedsteads is one that does not lend itself to accurate classification, as do the chairs of the period, for example. If you are sure your old four-poster is genuine, and can deter-mine its approximate age, that is about all you can hope for. Any four-poster a hundred years old or more is valuable. If it is a mahogany bedstead with tall, slender, fluted posts, and with light carving in Georgian motifs, it is likely to be one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty years old and worth a high price.

Most of the old four-posters 'that you will be likely to come in contact with date no farther back than 'Soo, and belong to the Empire period. Many of them are so beautiful in their carving, and in such a good state of preservation, that they are well worth hunting for, and it would perhaps be best for the amateur antiquarian to confine his quest, for a time at least, to four-posters of this type.