Made around 1590 in Hertfordshire, the 'Great Bed of Ware' is an Elizabethan four-poster bed so large — roughly 3.3 × 3.3 metres — that it was said to accommodate four to six people at once. Commissioned as a tourist attraction by inns in the town of Ware, the bed is carved over every visible surface with dense Renaissance ornament and inlaid panels. Its fame spread across Europe; Shakespeare mentions it by name in 'Twelfth Night', and Ben Jonson and Jonson's contemporaries use it as a byword for extravagance. It has been on permanent display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London since 1931.

Exhibition Venue

Victoria and Albert Museum

Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, United Kingdom

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