An Antiquarian carved oak tester bed, 19th century

At the end of the 18th and early 19th century there was great interest in ‘Antiquarian’ furniture, with pieces designed to reference the past or produced to imitate. The publication of Henry Shaw’s, Specimens of Ancient Furniture in 1836 reflected this interest at the time, with finely engraved plates featuring ‘antiques’ and pieces wrongly thought of as being English and early. Some of the great Regency designers produced furniture in earlier styles and occasionally ‘copies’. Grandiose architectural projects, such as Wyattville’s extravagant Gothic designs for Windsor, also looked to earlier models. There was a ready market for oak furniture produced in ‘historic’ styles and sometimes sold as period. In 1839, the Wardour Street cabinetmaker, R.H. Bowman wrote, ‘for the last 40 or 50 years instead of that gorgeous, splendid furniture of Queen Elizabeth’s time we have had poor, plain and paltry’, and in 1841, the Art Union reported, ‘A taste has of late years arisen for carved furniture of the Tudor, Louis Quartorze and Renaissance periods’ (ibid.). Cabinetmakers, suppliers and designers were also quick to sell and design work in historic styles. With Edward Holmes Baldock supplying rich ebony Colonial furniture thought to be English and earlier and Richard Bridgens producing designs in his interpretation of an Elizabethan style amongst others. This superb tester bed is in that tradition.