The Hinton House Bed

Over the past few days at Temple Newsam I have been drawing the Hinton House Bed.

With a drawing board, pen and coloured pencils, I have been moving my green office chair around the room and making sense of the shape of the bed from different angles. The flock and braiding that covered the twisting scrolls of the headboard has worn in patches; the gold braiding looks scuffed, and tarnished. Polly says that's because at some point years ago it was cleaned heavy-handedly, and images fly into my head of a red-faced washerwoman scrubbing it threadbare.