A fine Italian single sleigh or lit en bateau bed, featuring sleek curved bedheads. This bed shows wonderfully rich colour and patination.
Italian sleigh beds (letti a barca) are very rare in comparison with the French ones and they stand out for their lighter and more graceful curves which also recall the gentle shape of a lyre or of a swan's neck, as the design of the curves are more extended and prolonged.
Finished all around (so that it can be positioned in the centre of a room), it has shaped feet which are moulded on one side only of the bed this is because these types of beds were designed to be also placed against the wall – hence the need to be flat on one side – and also complemented with a canopy high above the bed.
With both ends of the bed being of equal height it could work perfectly well as a day bed.
Only single sleigh beds like this one, also have the additional feature to be easily dressed to look and be used like sofas, by simply adding the right number of cushions and a pair of bolsters against the curved ends.
Sold with its made to measure wooden bed base covered with cotton printed/floral fabric.
Early 19th Century, circa 1815

223.5 cm x 100cm x 93cm h

It takes a standard single mattress 190cm long