This handsome bedstead is related to similarly carved examples representing a range of shops and, possibly, urban centers. Traditionally, they are associated with the Boston-Salem area; however, the presence of ivory attachments on one example, combined with a local provenance, has prompted a possible attribution to Providence, Rhode Island. The distinctive painted and gilded cornice, comprising bows and quivers of arrows, has been interpreted as referring to love and even more explicitly to conjugal relations.

Technical notes: Mahogany (headboard, foot posts), birch (head posts, rails), basswood (quivers), eastern white pine (remainder of cornice); soft maple (lacing knobs). The cornice’s original green and gilt decoration survives; however, it is covered with an intractable overpaint, which has been repainted with a reversible paint duplicating the original tint. A fragment of the original yellow wool hangings was discovered on the tester frame. 

Related examples: Most closely related is Monkhouse and Michie 1986, pp. 221–22, no. 163. Others include Nutting 1962, nos. 1513–15; American Art Association, New York, sale 4394, May 5–6, 1938, lot 304; Sack 1950, p. 95; Antiques 62 (July 1952). p. 13; Antiques 89 (February 1966), p. 175; catalogue of The Delaware Antiques Show; 1968, p. 6; Sack 1969–92, vol. 5, p. 1182, no. P4085; Davidson and Stillinger 1985, p. 63; Monkhouse and Michie 1986, pp. 218–22, no. 162; Sack 1969–92, vol. 5, p. 1355, no. P4400; Roy 1992, p. 110. Those with painted cornices are in Randall 1965, pp. 258–59, no. 214; Montgomery 1966b, pp. 60–61, no. 1; unpublished examples belong to Historic New England, the White House, and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. On file at RISD is a photograph of one in the Arnold Green homestead, Providence. 

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.