Illustration [54] shows a bedstead of about 1760-1770. It is what was called a field bed, the form of its top suggesting a tent. The frames for the canopy top were made in different shapes, but the one in the illustration was most common. The drapery is made of the netted fringe so much used in those days for edging bedspreads, curtains, and covers. This deep fringe was made especially for canopy tops for bedsteads. Its manufacture has been revived by several Arts and Crafts Societies. The slat-back chair is one of the rush-bottomed variety common during the eighteenth century. This room, with its wooden rafters, is in the Whipple house at Ipswich, built in 1650.
The claw-and-ball foot bedstead in Illustration [55] was a part of the wedding outfit of Martha Tufts, who was married in 1774, in Concord. It was then hung with the printed cotton draperies, hand spun and woven, which still hang from the tester, albeit much darned and quite dropping apart with age. The draperies are of a brownish color, possibly from age, but at all events they are now dingy and unattractive, whatever they may have been in 1774. The posts above the cabriole legs are small and plain, and there is no headboard. The wood is mahogany. This bedstead is now owned by the Concord Antiquarian Society. Although Chippendale’s designs do not show a bedstead with claw-and-ball feet, he probably did make such bedsteads, and this may be called Chippendale, as it belongs to that period.
Illus. 55.—Claw-and-Ball Foot Bedstead, 1774.
A bedstead with plain, simple posts, with the cover and hangings of old netting, is shown in Illustration [56]. There is a good comb-back Windsor arm-chair and a mahogany cradle of the period in the room, which is a bedroom in the Lee Mansion, Marblehead, Mass.
Illus. 56.—Bedstead, 1780.
A splendid bedstead found in Charleston, S. C., and now owned by J. J. Gilbert, Esq., of Baltimore, is shown in Illustration [57]. All four posts are carved and reeded, and are after the manner of Chippendale. The tester and headboard show the Adam influence, placing the date of the bedstead about 1770.