Valance
Category
Textiles
Date
Unknown
Materials
Velvet, Wool, Serge
Collection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1127927.3.7
Summary
Foot upper inner valance, part of the High Great Chamber canopy; brown velvet with brown wool fringe and moss green serge lining.
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.”