Bedstead (no. 600)

1901-04

Gustave Stickley Company

The United Crafts

The Craftsman Workshops

46 x 58 x 80

Bedstead (no. 600) is one of those forms that underwent radical changes in the relatively short course of its production. While the basic idea–a bed whose head- and footboards featured spaced slats–remained the same, the execution and aesthetics of the form shifted between 1901 and 1902. The earlier version of the bed depicted in Chips from the Workshops of the United Crafts shows a shaped top rail and wider slats (seven in the drawing) that project a massiveness not evident in the later iteration. By 1902, thinner slats and flat top rails made the form more rectilinear and cohesive, in keeping with the general thrust of Stickley's designs of that period. Apparently, this later version was made two ways as both knock-down and fixed versions have been noted. Unfortunately, the bedspread covers the legs in the retail plates and makes it impossible to see which version of the model was used for the image.

600

Factory Inventory (1903-04)

$32.50 (Chips from the Workshops of the United Crafts)

Austrian Oak (Chips from the Workshops of the United Crafts)

Oak (1903 inventory)

1902 Retail Plate image courtesy of Winterthur Library, Gustav Stickley, [Catalog of Photoprinted Plates] [Grand Rapids, Mich.]: G. Stickley, [1902 or 1903], call no. NK2265 S845 F TC