24 May 2012
12:00 BST
Chester
The Beedham Collection: Selected Oak Furniture & Works of Art 1450 - 1750
Back to auction 20460
The Beedham Collection: Selected Oak Furniture & Works of Art 1450 - 1750
Back to auction 20460
Six very rare fragments of a Henry VII/Henry VIII carved oak bed or screen, circa 1500
Comprising four panels and two posts
The panels all variously carved, the first centred by the face of a man, all within tendrils of berries and spade-shaped ribbed leaves, the second carved with a pair of naturalistic daffodil heads, surrounded by tendrils of berries and frilly leaves, the third carved with interlaced scrolling foliage, and the fourth carved with a design of leafy foliate scrolls, all approximately 29cm wide x 71cm high, the posts both carved with different designs, one with lozenge-shaped flowerheads in a diaper-work design, the second with naturalistic leafy foliage on a scrolling vine, the posts 138cm and 135cm high, with later black-painted finish, (6)
The panels all variously carved, the first centred by the face of a man, all within tendrils of berries and spade-shaped ribbed leaves, the second carved with a pair of naturalistic daffodil heads, surrounded by tendrils of berries and frilly leaves, the third carved with interlaced scrolling foliage, and the fourth carved with a design of leafy foliate scrolls, all approximately 29cm wide x 71cm high, the posts both carved with different designs, one with lozenge-shaped flowerheads in a diaper-work design, the second with naturalistic leafy foliage on a scrolling vine, the posts 138cm and 135cm high, with later black-painted finish, (6)
Estimate:
£3,000 - 4,000
US$ 4,600 - 6,100
€3,600 - 4,700
US$ 4,600 - 6,100
€3,600 - 4,700
Footnotes
- Provenance: Removed from a farmhouse in Somerset where it had been built into a staircase.
Literature:
These fragments may once have formed the headboard of a bed which would have resembled the bed made for the Earl of Derby in the first twenty years of the 16th century, and another circa 1500 - 1530, found at Lovely Hall, near Blackburn, both of which had pierced panels to both the head and foot boards. Whilst those offered here are not pierced, the leaf and berry pattern is stylistically similar, (see V. Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition (1979), pp. 387 - 388. The lozenge-shaped flowerheads arranged around a scrolling tendril which adorns one of these posts is a design which is stylistically similar to a bed from Crackenthorpe Hall, near Appleby (see R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture (1986), Vol. I, p. 38, Fig. 8).
The proportions of the panels and the posts suggest that they may once have formed part of a screen of some kind, perhaps in a parish church. The decorative motifs used on screen posts and bed posts in the first half of the sixteenth century bear close comparison. See, for instance, the posts to the screens illustrated in H. Cescinsky & E. Gribble, Early English Furniture & Woodwork (1922), pp. 109 - 173.
Category: Furniture / Oak Furniture
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