Purchased in 1980 from the Abegg-Stiftung Bern. Werner Abegg had purchased the bed head in a sale at Christie's South Kensington a few months previously (Lot 121, 29 January 1980).(RP/1913/2883M) Historical significance: This bed head is a product of the school of Fontainebleau, a flourishing centre for the grotesques in France during the sixteenth century. It is indicative of the wide dissemination of the grotesque across all decorative arts, including textiles. Donald King has noted that it was natural that grotesques, as wall decorations, should make the transition to woven textiles and be employed in wall hangings and bed hangings, including bed heads (King,1987, p.244). This particular example is not a woven pattern. King identified a fragment of a valance, currently in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, as having come from this bed head. Further surviving examples of textiles with embroidered grotesques, similar to this one, are a tester with the monogram of Henri II, dated c.1550, in the Louvre and a tablecloth in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (see references).