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A Visual History of the Best Canopy Beds

November 1, 2015

Photo: © Historical Picture Archive / CORBIS
1/21
A page from an illuminated manuscript, depicting the dedication of a book (and a red canopy bed), by Giovanni Boccaccio
Photo: DEA / G. Dagli Orti / Granger, NYC
2/21
Lover's Bed, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)

Photo: Corbis Images
3/21
The bed of William Morris, founder of the English Arts and Crafts Movement at Kelmscott Manor. The tapestries were worked by his daughter, May.
Photo: GraphicaArts / Getty Images
4/21
The Princess and the Pea, by Edmund Dulac, 1911
Photographed by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, January 15, 1932
5/21
“All women should have a day a week in bed,” said Edith Sitwell, who allowed Cecil Beaton to photograph her breakfasting in bed at Renishaw.
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Photographed by Henry Clarke, Vogue, September 1967
6/21
Elizabeth Taylor and daughter Maria have a tête-à-tête at Villa La Fiorentina, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, October 1967
7/21
A bed fit for a swan: Marella Agnelli’s Louis XV Piedmont bed with taffeta baldachin at Villa Perosa.
Photographed by Patrick Lichfield, Vogue, January 1968
8/21
The doll-like Penelope Tree poses on a canopied bamboo bed in her parents' house.

Photographed by Barry Berenson, Vogue, August 1969
9/21
Vogue described Chastity-era Cher’s dress as “a thigh-high harem of blue-green silk brocade trimmed with hand-knotted fringe.” The bed seems tame in comparison.
Photographed by Horst P. Horst, Vogue, July 1972
10/21
In her home in Mexico, Gloria Guinness slept in a delicately carved white canopy bed, adding color with Oaxacan textiles.
Photographed b y Horst P. Horst, Vogue, July 1976
11/21
Vogue called Diane von Furstenberg's Manhattan digs a “glamour-star’s pad.” She said it was “a woman’s apartment,” and decorated it in pink.

Photographed by Gili Oberto, Vogue, October 1992
12/21
In the guest room of the 14th-century manor house of Glyn, in Wales, Amanda Harlech turned a silk parachute into a canopy.
Photographed by Ellen von Unwerth, Vogue, January 1991
13/21
Susan Holmes in a fantasy of toile.
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Photographed by Arthur Elgort, Vogue, September 1993
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Nadja Auermann at Glin Castle in Ireland.

Photographed by Arthur Elgort, Vogue, April 1999
15/21
Gisele Bündchen, not quite yet ready for bed, in the Bahamas.
Photo: James Waddell
16/21
Designer Hervé Pierre’s Louis XVI canopied bed, à la polonaise, looks like it belongs in a story book.
Photographed by François Halard, Vogue, February 2008
17/21
A Louis XVI bed in François Halard's home in Arles.

Photographed by François Halard, Vogue Living, Spring/Summer 2008
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Four posts, elegantly draped.
Photographed by by François Halard, Vogue, September 2009
19/21
At Gela Nash-Taylor’s Wilshire pile, the guestroom boasts a pair of Louis XVI beds in their original Toile de Jouy.
Photographed by Pascal Chevallier, Vogue, June 2011
20/21
A candy-striped bed in Peter Copping’s bucolic retreat in Normandy.

Photographed by Tim Walker, Vogue, April 2012
21/21
Snuggling into a royal-looking bed at the Ritz Paris are models Sigrid Agren, Patricia van der Vliet, Josephine Skriver, and Mirte Maas, all in Valentino Haute Couture.
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