This example, with its tentlike top, represents a new type of bed introduced at the end of the eighteenth century. Thomas Sheraton explains that the camp or field bed is derived from the sort of bed used on the camp field and is suited for low rooms used for either servants or children. The Bayou Bend bed, with vase-shaped, reeded foot posts and tapering, spade-footed legs, is distinctive because it retains the original thin red stained surface as well as the original canvas sacking.

Technical notes: Original canvas sacking attached to head rail with leather strip and rose-headed nails; narrow canvas panels attached to side and foot rails in the same manner; both sacking and panels fitted with hand sewn eyelets through which rope could be threaded to attach sacking to the panels. Thin stain of iron oxide pigment loosely bound in oil on all surfaces; thin glaze of clear varnish over the stain on the posts.

Related examples: Winterthur (Montgomery 1966b, no. 9); two other examples with original sacking are found in MMA (Heckscher 1985, p. 151, no. 91) and in the Historic New England collection (Jobe et al. 1993, p. 392).

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.