Pair of side curtains for a bed early 18th century probably French This pair of embroidered curtains with chinoiserie designs would have decorated the sides of a European state bed of the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century. Originally, these curtains may have been part of a larger suite of furnishings for the decoration of an entire bedroom-a canape (settee) now in the private rooms of Madame de Maintenon at Fontainebleau has very similar embroidered designs.¹ The complete set of bed hangings probably included matching upper valances for the tester, lower valances for the frame supporting the mattresses, and a coordinating bedcover and headcloth, like the set of French bedroom furnishings now in the Metropolitan Museum (see MMA 53.2.1a-d, .2a-d). Oversize fanciful flora, a design element familiar from the so-called bizarre silks, are joined in these curtains by human figures dressed in vaguely Chinese garments, imaginary Asian winged dragons, and pairs of long-tailed birds. E