Great Bed of Ware

Great Bed of Ware

The Great Bed of Ware is an extremely large oak four poster bed, carved with marquetry, that was originally housed in the White Hart Inn in Ware, England. Built by Hertfordshire carpenter Jonas Fosbrooke circa 1590, the bed measures ten by eleven feet and can sleep over 15 people at once. Many of those who have used the bed have carved their names into its posts.

Like many objects of made at the time, the bed is carved with patterns derived from European Renaissance ornament. Originally it would have been brightly painted, and traces of these colours can still be seen on the figures on the bed-head. The design of the marquetry panels is derived from the work of Dutch artist Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-1604) and the panels were probably made by German craftsmen working in London in the late Elizabethan period. The bed-hangings are modern re-creations of fabrics of the period.

By the 1800s, the bed had been moved from the White Hart Inn to the Saracen's Head, another Ware inn. In 1870, William Henry Teale, the owner of the Rye House, acquired the bed and put it to use in a pleasure garden. When interest in the garden waned in the 1920s, the bed was sold. In 1931, it was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

References to the Great Bed in Literature

*William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night
*George Gordon Byron's Don Juan
*George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer.
*Djuna Barnes' Nightwood

Bibliography

*cite book|author=Jackson, Anna (ed.)|title= V&A: A Hundred Highlights|publisher=V&A Publications|year=2001

External links

* [http://images.vam.ac.uk/ Images of the Great Bed of Ware are available on the V&A website]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist/makhist8_prog13b.shtml BBC article]
* cite web |publisher= Victoria and Albert Museum
url= http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/british_galls/video/bed_of_ware/index.html
title= The Great Bed of Ware
work=British Galleries
accessdate= 2008-08-06


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно сделать НИР?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Ware (disambiguation) — Ware can refer to:People* Andre Ware, American football quarterback * Charles Pickard Ware (1849–1921), American educator and folk music transcriber * Charles R. Ware, American naval officer * Caroline F. Ware, American historian and social… …   Wikipedia

  • bed — bedless, adj. bedlike, adj. /bed/, n., v., bedded, bedding. n. 1. a piece of furniture upon which or within which a person sleeps, rests, or stays when not well. 2. the mattress and bedclothes together with the bedstead of a bed. 3. the bedstead… …   Universalium

  • Ware — infobox UK place country = England official name= Ware latitude= 51.817 longitude= 0.029182 civil parish= Christ Church Ware and St Mary the Virgin Ware population= 18,000 shire district= East Hertfordshire shire county = Hertfordshire region=… …   Wikipedia

  • Grosses Bett von Ware — Große Bett von Ware. Abbildung von 1877. Das Große Bett von Ware (engl. Great Bed of Ware) ist ein sehr großes Bett mit Eichenholz Pfosten, verziert mit Einlegearbeiten, welches sich ursprünglich in einer Herberge in Ware, England, befand. Es ist …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Großes Bett von Ware — Große Bett von Ware. Abbildung von 1877. Das Große Bett von Ware (englisch Great Bed of Ware) ist ein sehr großes Bett mit Eichenholz Pfosten, verziert mit Einlegearbeiten, welches sich ursprünglich in einer Herberge in Ware, England, befand …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • interior design — 1. the design and coordination of the decorative elements of the interior of a house, apartment, office, or other structural space, including color schemes, fittings, furnishings, and sometimes architectural features. 2. the art, business, or… …   Universalium

  • Victoria and Albert Museum — Coordinates: 51°29′48″N 0°10′19″W / 51.496667°N 0.171944°W / 51.496667; 0.171944 …   Wikipedia

  • Elizabethan furniture — is the form which the Renaissance took in England in furniture and general ornament, and in furniture it is as distinctive a form as its French and Italian counterparts. Gradual emergence For many years Gothic architecture had been forgetting its …   Wikipedia

  • West Virginia Prehistory — The area now known as West Virginia was a favorite hunting ground of numerous Native American peoples before the arrival of European settlers. Many ancient man made earthen mounds from various mound builder cultures survive, especially in the… …   Wikipedia

  • Historic Brattonsville — is a 775 acre American Revolution living history site and is a member of the Culture Heritage Museums of York County, South Carolina. The Bratton Plantation was owned and lived on for three generations by the wealthy Bratton family; the… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”