Chippendale Bed
Many visitors remark upon the relative shortness of this four-poster bed. The…
Chippendale Bed
Many visitors remark upon the relative shortness of this four-poster bed. The smaller dimensions may only in part be explained by the shorter average height of people in the 18th century. It was customary to sit up in bed while sleeping, propped up by ample supplies of bolsters and cushions. It was believed that an upright position would alleviate any respiratory problems and prevent tuberculosis. There was also a certain amount of superstition in Scotland, where people believed that lying flat on one’s back would make one more vulnerable to evil spirits entering the slumbering body.
The present blue and silver printed cotton hangings can be seen in a photograph taken in around 1900 and appear to have been commissioned by the 3rd Marquess, a striking example of the range of his sensibility and taste. The neo-classical medallions, tablets, garlands and cornucopias are wonderfully lustrous in colour and busy enough to go well with Chippendale's contrasting riot of rococo curves. The two matching pelmets to the windows were commissioned by the 5th Marquess and his wife, Eileen, from Afflecks of Ayr. Their quotation, dated 28th October 1937, is for £59 for the pair, 'hand carved from the solid... painted and gilded'.
Artefacts in this room
Chippendale Bed
The story of the Family Bedroom
In characteristic eighteenth-century manner, there were two bedrooms on the main floor, one for the Earl and the other for the Countess, referred to as the Family Bedchamber in a plan of 1754.
This is where the magnificent Chippendale four-poster bed is now housed. Carved in mahogany with fluted columns wrapped round with spiralling palm branches, it is the best of the numerous original four-poster beds at Dumfries House. Specifically designed for the 5th Earl of Dumfries by Thomas Chippendale, it testifies to Chippendale's experimentation in a new style at Dumfries House.
The bed was considered such a great success that its design was subsequently published in the third edition of the 'Gentleman and Cabinetmaker's Director' of 1762. The caption it bears therein, ‘a bed which has been made for the Earls of Dumfries and Morton’, gives rise to a tale which goes beyond the 5th Earl’s concern with a stylish piece of furniture alone. There are surviving papers that suggest the 5th Earl, who had lost his first wife in 1755, was keen to re-marry in order to secure an heir to his title and worldly goods.
In correspondence with his trusted friend and neighbour, the Earl of Loudon, there is a direct reference to one Lady Mary Douglas, daughter of the 14th Earl of Morton, whose tender hand (Lady Mary Douglas was 22 at this stage with the 5th Earl fast approaching 60) the Earl was hoping to obtain in marriage. Whilst the actual evidence for the Morton’s bed has yet to be found it is reasonable to speculate that the 5th Earl’s commission of this new type of romantic four-poster had been prompted by seeing one such bed in the Morton household. The intention might have been to show the lady in question that she would be marrying someone with an eye for her comfort, a sensitivity to her needs, and with the necessary means to provide her with certain luxuries in life. Alas, the courtship was doomed, but unbowed the Earl set his cap at a different lady, one Ann Duff, and a few years later, in 1762, they were married.
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