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Bed

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Photo Credit: Photograph by Karen Mauch


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Bookmark: http://triarte.brynmawr.edu/objects-1/info/165815



Designed by
Lockwood de Forest
American (1850 - 1932) Primary

Manufactured by
Ahmedabad Wood Carving Company
Indian Manufacturer



Bed

ca. 1885-1887
Chased brass over teak core, perforated copper

60 3/4 x 44 1/2 x 3 in. (154.3 x 113 x 7.6 cm)

Bryn Mawr College
Accession Number: Deanery.453
Acquisition Date: 05/15/2012
Geography: North and Central America and Asia, United States and India
Classification: Furnishings and Furniture; Furniture
Culture/Nationality: American design; Indian manufacture
Collection: Deanery Collection
Description: Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932) was an American-born artist who is most well-known for his landscape painting and interior design, as well as for his partnership with Louis Comfort Tiffany and the Associated Artists in New York. As a young man he travelled frequently with his family, touring Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East before the age of 25, but his greatest interest was in the decorative arts of Eastern India. De Forest spent many years in Ahmedabad overseeing a workshop where craftsmen produced carved furniture, tracery panels, jewelry, and textiles for export to New York City.

This chased brass bed frame, like its twin (Deanery.454), was purchased by Mary Elizabeth Garrett for her home in Baltimore, Maryland, while she was living there in the 1880s. The pair of beds was commissioned by de Forest from his Ahmedabad workshop; their head- and footboards are decorated with perforated copper panels of traditional East Indian design. When Garrett moved into the Deanery at Bryn Mawr in 1904, she brought several pieces of her East Indian furniture with her, including the pair of beds. They can be seen in archival photographs of her bedroom on the second floor of the Deanery.

Peacocks were an evocative symbol of the Aesthetic Movement, favored for their beautiful plumage and their associations with Japanese and Islamic art. Here, the fanned tail of a peacock forms the central panel of a headboard owned by Mary Garrett. The beds were manufactured using a repoussé technique, where metal is pushed out from inside to form a textured, three-dimensional surface. A similar effect is used in a low chair designed by de Forest, now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This bed and its twin are visible in archival photographs of Mary Garrett’s bedroom, while a similar full-size bed is seen in the bedroom of M. Carey Thomas. After the demolition of the Deanery, the beds were used in guest bedrooms at Pen y Groes until 1998, when they were sold or transferred to Special Collections.


Keywords Click a term to view the records with the same keyword
This object has the following keywords:
  • Arts and Crafts - An aesthetic and social movement of the late 19th century that originated in England and spread to the United States, Germany, and Northern Europe. A reaction against industrialization and the quality of manufactured goods, the movement is marked by a desire to revive the craftsmanship associated with traditional arts, a form follows function philosophy, and an idealized view of the medieval craft guilds.
  • beds - Generally, the sleeping places of humans and animals. Specifically, permanent pieces of furniture comprised of a bedstead, which is the wooden or metal support, and the bedding, including the mattress and cover.
  • brass - Alloy of copper and zinc, usually with copper as the major alloying element and zinc up to 40% by weight. For an alloy consisting mainly of copper, combined most often with tin, but at times also with other metals, use "bronze (metal)."
  • Indian - Nationality, styles, and culture of the modern nation of India, or more broadly to cultures that developed on the subcontinent of India, which is bounded by the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Himalayn Mountains. It may also refer even more broadly to cultures of India, the East Indies, and the former British Indian Empire. It was formerly used less specifically to refer to any Oriental or Asian culture. Do not use this term to refer to the indigenous populations of North or South America; see "Native American" or other appropriate terms.
  • repoussé - In metalwork, a technique for decorating a surface by hammering the reverse of the object, sometimes into a mold of wood that has been carved in intaglio, to create designs in relief.

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Additional Image Deanery.453_BMC_f.jpg
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Additional Image Deanery.453_BMC_d_2.jpg
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Additional Image Deanery.453_BMC_d.jpg
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Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Bibliography List
The following Bibliography exist for this object:
  • Roberta A. Mayer, Lockwood De Forest University of Delaware Press. Newark, NJ, 2008
    Page Number: 151-152, Figure Number: 130-131
  • Manufacturers' Appraisal Company, 1949 Manufacturers' Appraisal. 1949
    Page Number: 40
  • Manufacturers' Appraisal Company, 1954 Manufacturers' Appraisal. 1954
    Page Number: 55

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Image of Bed
Bed

Deanery.454

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<ref name=BMC>cite web |url=http://triarte.brynmawr.edu/objects-1/info/165815 |title=Bed |author=Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections |accessdate=3/28/2024 |publisher=Bryn Mawr College</ref>

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