Canopy Bed with Alcove, Ming dynasty, 16th century. Huanghuali wood with 19th century painted soft wood base and canopy, silk gauze curtains, and silver hooks, 231.14 × 219.08 × 214 cm. Nelson Atkins Museum, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 64-4/4.

This alcove bed is constructed in exactly the same way as a six-post testered bed with a corridor area to the front; the bed section is of flush-sided construction with a plain apron undecorated except for a small hip at each end shortly before the mitre to the leg which terminates in a plain horsehoof foot. The six posts that tenon into the frame are concave to the two outer surfaces and support the similarly molded horizontal rails that form the lower section of the cornice of eight pierced panels to the side and seven to the front, each divided by similarly molded uprights and framed by a long rail above. The front section, or corridor area, has two corner and tow inset posts of full height, between each of these are panels of slanted wan design. This is then repeated to the sides and back of the bed area with short panels to the front. The fret design is cleverly constructed in order to hide the end grain by mitering the front, concave surface and a half-lapping the reverse with a small parallel mitre in the corner with exposed tenons in the opposing member. The bed is unusually constructed with a removable soft seat frame which fits within an outer frame that is part of the construction of the bed. The base and tester are of softwood, probably jumu, and are painted with cranes and floral scroll. 17th century.