International studio (27.1905/1906(1906))

Ancient Bedsteads and Cradles


ANTEPENDIUM OF ALTAR (In the Figdor Collection) LATE 15TH CENTURY


and Persians, and that these were made of metal
and of wood, often inlaid with mother-of-pearl and
ivory. The Greeks and the Romans, too, had
bedsteads made of the same materials, the feet of
which were richly wrought. It was only, how-
ever, in the course of centuries that the Germanic
races became familiär with bedsteads. Our early
ancestors slept on the ground, we are told, their
beds consisting of leaves, straw, or rushes covered

with the skins of the animals they had killed in the
chase. From the floor to the low wooden plank,
which served as sofa by day and bed by night, was
but a Step in the stage of civilisation.
The marriage bed, which in Germany consisted
of two bedsteads placed side by side, as it does to
this day, was always placed in the lady’s chamber,
and hidden from sight by rieh hangings suspended
from a baidachin covering the bedstead, but quite
separate from it. In this
room the mistress sat with
her maids making tapestry
or working embroidery,
and here she received her
visitors.
The simple bedsteads of
the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries gradually became
more elaborate until, with
Gothic architecture and the
desire of always soaring
higher and higher, came
the “ciel” or “sky,” which
took the place of the bal-
dachin. This “sky"
formed part of the bedstead
proper, and had curtains
hanging from it which
were closed entirely at
night, an arrangement
which still survives. From
the roof of the “sky"
often hung a lamp which
shed its dim light over the

(In the Figdor Collection)

14TH CENTURY

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