‘Incontestably among the few surviving masterpieces in the Stuart baroque style.'

James II's Bed at Knole, Kent, and its two accompanying armchairs and six stools are one of the most splendid and historically important sets of late Stuart furniture in existence.

The bed, richly carved and gilded and opulently hung with blue-green Genoa velvet, faces a precarious future.

Its fragile velvet hangings have deteriorated at such a speed over the last 20 years that our Textile Conservation Adviser has recommended urgent conservation. Without treatment, they predict that the hangings, and other textiles on the bed, may disintegrate over the next 10 years.

In March 2006, continuing loss of the silk made it necessary to remove the curtains, the upper outer valances and base valances from the bed. These parts have been put into store until money can be raised to pay for their treatment.

As a preliminary step, two cantonnieres (3m long narrow curtains hung at the foot of the bed to hide the foot posts) have recently undergone conservation at the National Trust Textile Conservation Studio at Blickling, Norfolk. The success of the treatment will decide how the whole bed is conserved.

A bed fit for a king

The bed has been historically known as The Venetian Ambassador’s Bed, mainly because it is on display in what is known as The Venetian Ambassador's Room at Knole. However, it was, in fact, made for King James II.

A royal warrant of August 1688 required the King’s Master of the Wardrobe to supply ‘a bed of green and gold figured velvet with scarlet and white silk fringe’, two armchairs and six stools for use at Whitehall Palace.

The bed is attributed to Thomas Roberts (active 1685-1714), who incorporated carvings of the royal emblems of the lion and unicorn, the symbols of the three kingdoms and James’s crowned ‘JR’ cipher within the Garter.

© NTPL / Andreas von Einsiedel

King James, however, had little chance to enjoy his luxurious new bed. He was forced to flee England shortly afterwards. The bed fell into the hands of Knole’s then owner, the 6th Earl of Dorset. The opportunistic Earl had begun amassing the contents, sometimes of whole rooms, from royal palaces.

So King James’s magnificent and virtually unused state bed and furniture arrived at Knole in 1701. Tantalisingly, the name of the upholsterer is still unknown - it was never recorded in the royal Wardrobe accounts.

Previous restoration

The bed was restored in 1959 using an adhesive which has itself deteriorated and is now causing damage.

The velvet on the hangings is still original, but adhesive was added to attach coarse nylon net and new linings of orange-brown nylon to the hangings to support the velvet. This adhesive is now brittle and perished, and has created dark stains on the fabrics.

Overall, the hangings are in poor shape. The velvet is extremely weak and prone to splitting and cracking, and patched in places.

National Trust conservation

The team at the National Trust Textile Conservation Studio began work on the two cantonnieres by removing the stitching from the 1950’s restoration. They were then able to separate the velvet from the linings, fringes and trimmings.

Their next step was to clean the velvet back and front using a low-pressure vacuum. Beforehand, a tracing was taken of the pattern repeat and the position of broken fragments, so they could be removed and treated separately.

For the cleaning, the velvet was sandwiched in nylon gossamer and placed in a specially made support frame, the wrong side up. A vacuum suction table was placed underneath the frame.

The adhesive was softened and removed by filtering dichloromethane in a gel base through the nylon, so pieces of previously adhered lining could be peeled off the velvet. The velvet was then flushed through with industrial methylated spirits and blotted.

© National Trust

© National Trust

A conservation grade detergent was then sponged onto the velvet, before it was rinsed through with soft water and blotted several times more.

Industrial methylated spirits was once again applied to the velvet and blotted to remove the greasy dirt sitting on top of the pile.

Finally, the velvet was left to air dry before a final vacuum clean.

Now clean, the fragments of velvet could be joined back together using a suitable adhesive, applied as a fine film onto a support base of transparent silk. The secured velvet was then lined with a dyed lightweight spun silk, and green dyed fine conservation net was placed over the cantonnieres' entire length.

© National Trust

The cantonnieres' silk fringes were also cleaned using a low-pressure vacuum, so they became silky and fluffy.

The success of the treatment will now help us undertake the conservation of the remainder of the bed’s hangings.

The cantonnieres will be redisplayed on the bed after it has been fully conserved.