State bed
Category
Furniture
Date
Unknown
Materials
Feather, Metal, Oak, Pine, Silk, Velvet
Measurements
3470 mm (H)2620 mm (Length)2620 mm (W)470 mm (D)
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1127927
Summary
State bed comprising brown velvet hangings and counterpane with Elizabethan petit-point applique on a modern frame and the High Great Chamber canopy comprising brown velvet hangings with Elizabethan petit-point applique. Bed frame is oak with squared members, turned tapered columns rising from bed level. Pine top frame. Slats with undercloth. Brown velvet hangings from bed rail lined with brown silk. Metal thread fringe. 1 solid mattress, 1 feather mattress. High Great Chamber canopy consists of three inner and three outer valances, tester, headcloth and a lower valance. Brown velvet with Elizabethan applique work. Crest in centre; three Cavendish stags heads impaling Hardwick saltire (red and gold) supported by stag on left, man on right. Coronet and knotted serpent. Cavendo Tutus Fuimus. Mounted on an oak rail for hanging at the top.
Provenance
This bed was restored by the 6th Duke from the canopy dating from the time of Christian Bruce in the High Great Chamber (en suite with the Farthingale chairs); he found the restored canopy too 'glaring' for Hardwick and took it to Chatsworth. The canopy was brought back by the Duchess Evelyn and made into a state bed for the Withdrawing Chamber. Evelyn wrote in her ‘Notes’ dated 1946 that; “The huge bed was a bad error of judgement on my part. The canopy was brought away from the State Bedroom at Chatsworth. It had been restored or made up by the 6th Duke. (Mr. Crace was then the upholsterer from London who did much rather inferior work here). We required another bedroom so I had a bed made to fit the canopy not realising what a gigantic one it would be.”