George IV's Bed in The King's Bedchamber At Windsor Castle

Here at Windsor Castle is the King's State Bedchamber. It's part of the state apartments created for Charles II in the 1680s. Being the bedchamber, of course, the most important piece of furniture in here is indeed the bed. And in this space you can see a very magnificent late 18th century bed. And it is a French bed. It was made by the master furniture maker, Georges Jacob. And the bed was originally acquired by George IV in about 1790 when he was Prince Regent. This would have been exactly the kind of bed that would have appealed to George IV. He was passionate about French furniture. He acquired many, many pieces in the sales which took place after the French Revolution in 1789. The bed itself is constructed from gilt wood. The four uprights of the bed terminate in military helmets. The headboard and the footboard have decorative gilt wood cresting with floral motifs. And then, of course, this all leads up to this very sumptuous crowned dome at the top of the bed from which the draperies fall down the sides and down the back. So that you can tell from all these different elements that a huge amount of work would have gone into constructing and decorating a bed of this kind. It's definitely a bed for a very important person. At the time when it was in George IV's bedchamber at Carlton House, the bed looked very different. It was upholstered in blue and gold. And in about 1810, it was decided to make some changes to the bed. And a few years later, when George IV had turned his focus as king by this stage to redecorating private apartments, but also the state apartments here at Windsor Castle, he decided that this bed should be incorporated in a rather magnificent suite of rooms created for his mistress, Lady Cunningham. And so we have an original miniature design produced by the decorators Morel and Seddon, which were intended to show George IV what the rooms would look like once they were completed. And in this design, we can see that very beautiful blue and gold design. Today, when we look at the bed, we can see it's no longer blue and gold. And it has this very rich decorative scheme in purple and green. And this is because for the state visit of the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie in 1855 to visit Queen Victoria and Prince Albert here at Windsor, Queen Victoria went to incredible lengths to have suites of rooms for the Emperor and Empress decorated specially for the visit. So this was an extraordinary undertaking. And the most important focal point was this bed. And it was in this room where Empress Eugenie actually slept during the state visit. And the intention was that she would have been very pleased to see this green and purple colour scheme, which Queen Victoria thought were the appropriate colours. But later accounts seem to suggest that the Empress herself found it rather gaudy. But it's not just that purple and green fabric that we see on the bed. In fact, it's very richly embroidered, as you can see from these beautiful flowers, which adorn the curtains, which adorn the inside of the domed top of the bed. And it's thought that these are in fact much earlier. We know from the bills of the Craise firm who carried out this redecoration in 1855 that that embroidery already existed, and they record that they specially cleaned it and then applied it to the new green and purple silk. And it's possible that that embroidery might have been created by Queen Charlotte. One of the particular elements of decoration that was carried out for the state visit in 1855 was the completely new panel of embroidery applied to the footboard of the bed, which is still there today. It's been conserved very carefully over the years. And there you can see a beautiful imperial eagle, obviously the sort of imperial emblem of France, together with the joint ciphers of Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie. So with so many different techniques and very fragile elements and materials that make up this bed, we take a huge amount of care and trouble to ensure that everything is kept in the best possible condition. And our conservators have worked on this bed over the decades to ensure it's presented in the best possible way. And keeping the bed in pristine condition means that it can be on permanent public display here in the King's State Bedchamber for all visitors to Windsor Castle to see in the State Apartments.