Day Couch
- 202
“When the men of old made tables and couches, although the length and width were not standard, when placed in a studio or room there were invariably antique, elegant and delightful.” Treatise on Superfluous Things, ca. 1620
Unlike Western beds, couches were used both for sleeping by night and lounging by day. Paintings often show gentlemen lounging on them in their studios. Unlike chairs, which were formal, couches were informal. Once could sit cross-legged, or with one leg pendant, or one could recline. Cushions and bolsters would make the couch a comfortable place to spend leisure time.
Charlotte Horstmann Ltd.;
Purchased from Charlotte Horstmann Ltd. through Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation Acquisition Fund by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1972.
Robert H. Ellsworth, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples of the Ming and Early Ch’ing Dynasties (New York: Random House, 1971), 246, 145 no. 36 (repro.).
Laurence Sickman, “Simplicity and Subtlety: The Decorative Arts in China” Apollo, special issue for the Asian art collection in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Vol. XCVII, no. 133 (March 1973), 270, no. 7 (repro.).
Archives of Asian Art, vol. xxvii, (New York: Asian Society, 1973-74), 104, fig. 36 (repro.).
Laurence Sickman, “Chinese Classic Furniture,” Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society 1977-78, vol. 42 (London: 1979), pl. 5c (repro.).
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 181, no. 99 (repro.).
Sarah Handler, “Comfort and Joy: A Couch Bed for Day and Night,” Journal of the Classical Chinese Furniture Society, vol. 2, no. 1 (Winter 1991), 15, fig. 15 (repro.).
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 346 (repro.).
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 366, no. 258 (repro.).
