Had they the benefit of modern conveniences; vacuum cleaners, washing machines and central heating, it is hard to imagine whether these lush textile bed curtains would have ever existed. Four poster beds date back to the 16th century, when the custom of draping beds with curtains of a heavy fabric was a necessity for warmth apart from any superstitious ideas.
The MFA in Boston :”And so to Bed” documented the bed drapes that belonged to the collection of the once grandly decorated Ashburnham House in Sussex.
I stood before the glass, my eyes straining to see the stitches and lacing from Indian hands. This proves a challenge with the exhibition lighting that dims and glows intermittently. But the light cast a twilight mood over the room, almost transporting the appropriate illuminations to the old bedrooms that these drapes once inhabited; candlelit rooms with perhaps a faint glow of coals from the fire in the hearth.
It is easy in these conditions to transport oneself onto the rumply old mattress of horse-hair and ticking, and under the puffy padding of duck down duvets. Settled in for the night, the leaf work tracing up above ones head it is easy to think of deer, sheep and foxes padding lightly across the canvas ground; of the shepherds fluting beside twisted trunks; rising out of ferny thickets.
There are many couplets of birds, in mid air bringing to mind the dulcet tones of bird calls, and the contented twitter of spring, and the lure of dreams and sleep.