Figure of a crane

This figure was made to ornament the domed canopy of a couch bed installed by Chippendale's men in the Couch Room at Harewood House in 1769. The Steward's Day Work Book records them on 24-25 November 1769 ‘Fixing the Couch Bed up 24 hrs'. The 1795 inventory describes the bed among the contents of this small but luxurious interior intended for private repose, situated between Edwin Lascelles' and Lady Fleming's apartments in the semi-state ground floor in the north-east corner of the house: ‘1 French Couch Bedstead with Dome Top in burnished gold and crimson damask hangings'. As early as 1771 the Duchess of Northumberland had described the room; ‘…with a sofa, like a Bed furnish'd wth crimson damask'. The bed was dismantled and stored in the 19th century, but the crane appears to have been used as an ornament around the house until it was sent for sale in 1951. The lower part of the bed was sold at Christie's on 1 April 1976 (lot 44) and bought by Bradford Museums and Art Galleries. The 7th Earl of Harewood gave them the rest of the superstructure when it was discovered later. It has since been reconstructed and is on display at Bolling Hall, Bradford. Couch beds were usually placed lengthways in alcoves where they could be used either as sofas (with the curtains drawn up) or as beds (resembling tents). Chippendale illustrated two ‘Chinese Sophas' in the 1754 Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, and these were augmented in the third edition by ‘Field Beds' (plate XLIX) and two new canopied ‘Couch Beds'. One was ‘made for an Alcove in Lord Pembroke's House, at Whitehall', while the other, plate L, shows the dome surmounted by the figure of a crane, which Chippendale suggested laconically ‘…is the Emblem of Care and Watchfulness: which, I think, is not unbecoming a Place of Rest'. Alternatively, Chippendale suggested that couch beds could be ‘placed at the end of a long Gallery', where a hostess could receive her guests at grand receptions. He added: ‘If the curtains and valances are adorned with large Gold Fringes and Tassles, and Ornaments gilt with burnished Gold, it will look very grand'.

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