Back panel for a bed (Lit à la duchesse en impériale). Culture: French, Beauvais. Dimensions: Overall: H. 99 1/2 × W. 72 in. (252.7 × 182.9 cm). Factory: Tapestry made at Beauvais. Date: ca. 1780-90.As its full-size domed canopy is suspended from the ceiling rather than supported on posts, this tester bed, which bears the stamp of the menuisier Georges Jacob, is a type called lit à la duchesse en impériale. Its original but now fragile hangings, woven in 1782-83 at the Beauvais tapestry manufactory after designs by Jean-Baptiste Huet (1745-1811), have been replaced by modern silk damask, except for the lining of the interior dome. French eighteenth-century beds tended to be lofty, as it was customary to pile them with three or more mattresses filled with straw, wool, horsehair, or feathers. Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) noted in 1766, "French beds are so high, that sometimes one is obliged to mount them by the help of steps."1The custom of receiving visitors while reposing in a large