Chinese Wood Canopy Bed

Canopy bed with a carved top rail and a low, open back.

This canopy bed is from Shanxi Province, China, and dates to the 19th century. It is elm wood. Once China slowly opened to visiting diplomats and businessmen, a trickle of antique furniture leaving the country became a flood that lasted through the 1980s, the 1990s and into the early 2000s. Four slender posts hold a rail of carved panels across the top. Round carved medallions sit at the front corners of the sleeping platform, and a curved back panel closes one side. Short square legs. Dark brown, matte, a bit dry. It is 78 inches long, 38.5 deep and 84 high.

A bed with a roof and a faintly theatrical front.