The Golden Bed is a bed designed by the English architect and designer

William Burges William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...

in 1879 for the guest bedroom of the home that he designed for himself in

Holland Park Holland Park is an area of Kensington, on the western edge of Central London, that contains a street and public park of the same name. It has no official boundaries but is roughly bounded by Kensington High Street to the south, Holland Road ...

The Tower House The Tower House, 29 Melbury Road, is a late-Victorian townhouse in the Holland Park district of Kensington and Chelsea, London, built by the architect and designer William Burges as his home. Designed between 1875 and 1881, in the French Go ...

. It is now in the collection of the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

(V&A) in

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

. The bed was made by John Walden and carved by Thomas Nicholls. The painting in the central panel of the headboard was executed by

Henry Holiday Henry Holiday (17 June 183915 April 1927) was a British historical genre and landscape painter, stained-glass designer, illustrator, and sculptor. He is part of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art. Life Early years and training Holiday was born ...

, and the motifs and figures on the bed painted by Fred Weekes. The bed is made from polished hardwood, mahogany and pine. The theme for the guest room has been variously described as 'The Earth and Her Productions' and 'Vita Nova' ('New Life'). The Golden Bed matched the rest of the furniture designed for the guest bedroom, in keeping with the room's decorative scheme.

Design

The Golden Bed is a large bed, measuring long, high and wide. It is made from wood, gilded gold. The bed is decorated with carvings and 'fragments of illuminated manuscripts under glass and rock crystal'. Two mirrors are inset into the headboard, which features a painting by Thomas Weekes of the

Judgement of Paris Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...

at its centre. The three gods in the 'Judgement of Paris' are wearing clothes of the 13th-century, with

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

standing to the left of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, with

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

bowing to Paris on the right. The painting had previously been part of a larger painted panel at Burges' rooms in Buckingham Street, where he had lived before Tower House. The sideboards of the bed are ornamented with glass covering pieces of illuminated vellum and fragments of textiles. Grotesque figures, of a female and male, feature in the side brackets at the head of the bed. The bed head and foot posts are surmounted by half orbs of

rock crystal Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

. The foot of the bed is inscribed with the

Latin phrase __NOTOC__ This is a list of Wikipedia articles of Latin phrases and their translation into English. ''To view all phrases on a single, lengthy document, see: List of Latin phrases (full)'' The list also is divided alphabetically into twenty page ...

'VITA NOVA' ('New Life'), with the posts of the bed inscribed 'WILLIAM BURGES ME FIERI FECIT' ('William Burges Made Me') on the right, and 'ANNO DOMINI MDCCCLXXIX' ('In the Year of Our Lord 1879') on the left.

History

The estimate book Burges used for Tower House records the bed on 12 March 1879 as costing £39 13s (). Thomas Nicholls carving for the bed is marked by a payment of £15 15s in June that year (). From 1952 to 1953 the Exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts was held at the V&A, at which the Golden Bed and an accompanying

washstand A washstand or basin stand is a piece of furniture consisting of a small table or cabinet, usually supported on three or four legs, and most commonly made of mahogany, walnut, or rosewood, and made for holding a wash basin and water pitcher. The s ...

, also from the guest bedroom at

, were lent for display.

Oliver Poole, 1st Baron Poole Oliver Brian Sanderson Poole, 1st Baron Poole (11 August 191128 January 1993), was a British Conservative Party politician, soldier and businessman. Early life Oliver Brian Sanderson Poole was born at 6 Montagu Mansions, St Marylebone, London, ...

was originally asked to lend the bed but Poole subsequently requested that Colonel T.H. Minshall D.S.O. be acknowledged as the owner. Minshall had owned Tower House in the 1920s. Poole and his mother, Mrs. Minshall, later agreed to donate the bed and washstand to the V&A in the name of Colonel Minshall. In 2002 the Golden Bed was lent to

Knightshayes Court Knightshayes Court is a Victorian country house An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time i ...

in Tiverton, Devon, by the V&A. Knightshayes Court had been built by Burges from 1867 to 1874. The bed joined a wardrobe designed by Burges on loan from Tower House in a newly created 'Burges room' at Knightshayes Court.

References

* {{William Burges 1879 in art Beds Collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum William Burges furniture