Untitled
Category
Furniture
Date
1568 (the pediment) - circa 1580 (the bed; and with later alterations)
Materials
The pediment of carved walnut and later oak; the bed of carved, turned and joined oak and walnut, poplar, putty inlay and moreen
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Sizergh Castle, Cumbria
NT 997761
Caption
The bed is contemporary with the spectacular panelling around it but, as everywhere at sizergh, changes have occurred over centuries of family use. We see a carved coat of arms that probably comes from another bed or lost overmantel, eighteenth century 'in house' restorations and a holly crest added in the twentieth century.
Summary
A walnut, oak and poplar tester bed, with later repairs in oak and inlay to the cornice in putty, England, circa 1580, with hangings of red moreen. Topped by a carved walnut and inlaid pediment, England, dated 1568, now atop the cornice of the tester of the bed in the Inlaid Chamber [NT 997761.1] but not original to the bed, and reset from elsewhere. Probably assembled this way in the late 18th/early 19th century.
Provenance
The pediment probably commissioned by Walter Strickland (d. 1569) and/or Alice Strickland (d. 1585). The bed probably commissioned by Thomas Boynton (d. 1582) and/or Alice Boynton (d. 1585). Shown in the Inlaid Chamber in an engraving by T. Allom (1804 - 1872) published in 1835, and again in paintings of 1849 and 1873 by Joseph Nash the Elder (1809 - 1878). Sold along with the stained glass roundels to the window to the Inlaid Chamber, to the South Kensington Museum in 1896 for £400. Returned to Sizergh on a long loan in 1978. Transferred back to the ownership of the National Trust in 2016.
References
Wells-Cole 1997 Anthony Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: the influence of continental prints, 1558-1625, New Haven & London 1997, p. 21 Goodall, 2002: Ian Goodall. “Privacy, display and over extension: Walter Strickland’s rebuilding of Sizergh.” Antiquaries Journal 82 (2002): pp.197-245. (Clifford-Smith, 1915), H. Clifford-Smith, 'The Panelled Rooms IV: The Inlaid Room from Sizergh Castle' (V & A Museum Department of Woodwork, 1915), pp. 28 - 29