James Watterston Herald (British, 1859-1914)
A pair of Heal's double bed ends
The mahogany head and foot boards inset with panels painted with pastoral scenes, by James Watterston Herald c1908, the head with a central larger panel (28 x 50cm) flanked by two smaller (28 x 24cm), the foot with one panel (20 x 50cm) and both further inset with four blue pottery plaques to each board and to each finial, the bed irons replaced, 137cm wide x 209cm deep x 132cm high, (53 1/2in wide x 82in deep x 51 1/2in high)
Footnotes:
Exhibited
Edinburgh, City Art Centre, Hand, Heart and Soul, 2007

Herald and his friend Henry T Wyse shared an interest in artistic decoration of household furniture. Wyse designed his own furniture which was made in Arbroath by William Middleton and exhibited at the Dundee Graphic Arts Association: he also published them in his book Simple Furniture (1900). Herald's few known pieces of painted furniture are more sophisticated. Also, the ceramic finials here are similar to the decorated 'pebbles' to be made by Wyse's Holyrood Pottery in Edinburgh in the 1920s.
The bed, with its inlaid ceramic plaques the hue of lapis lazuli, is similar in design to London commercial examples of the early 1900s. Similar beds were sold by Heal's, who exhibited one example, with embroidered hangings and covers by the Haslemere Peasant Industries' 'Peasant Tapestries' at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. This bed is unlikely to have been made in Arbroath but bought by Herald who contributed its fine five painted panels in place of embroideries.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Cumming who assisted with this catalogue entry.