Dream Chamber: Chinese Bedroom Furniture from the 17th to 19th Century

The Crow Collection (Dallas, TX) hosts an exhibition featuring Chinese furniture from the 17th to 19th Century.

Ming and Qing elite did not go to bed in public, like their counterparts in France. There was no royal leveé or couchée, with courtiers ceremonially in attendance. In upper-class China, places of sleeping and beds were private spaces for slumber, frolicking, and reproductive get-togethers. The very privacy and focus of the bedroom makes it a charged spot for dramatic action in Chinese novels and operas, such as The Golden Lotus or The Plum in the Golden Vase (Jin Ping Mei), Tale of the Western Chamber (Xi Xiang Ji), and Dream of the Red Chamber (Hong Lou Meng), also known as “Story of the Stone”

Inventories of the late Ming and Qing periods reveal that beds were among the most important possessions in a household, particularly for a woman. A bed might be given to a woman by her family as part of her dowry or by her husband as an indication of her status among multiple wives and concubines. Should a marriage be terminated, a woman’s bed and her jewelry remained her own.

The bed we see here is without the colorful dressings that would have accompanied it in use. It would have had curtains all around, able to conceal anyone within from view, sashes for exposing or concealing the interior as desired, perhaps tassels hanging from the canopy, and comfortable silk covers and cushions. 

This small exhibition features examples of hardwood furniture that might comprise a bed chamber in the home of a prosperous family living at the end of Ming dynasty in the 17th century or under the Qing dynasty in the 18th and 19th centuries. It includes a canopy bed with ornamental pieced-wood railings, a footstool, a wash-basin, and two small fan-shaped stools that could serve multiple functions. A bed chamber might contain in addition, a lamp, an incense stand, a small chest, and a few favorite items for display. And, of course, the dreams of its occupant.