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Lot Essay
This work table combines sinuous curves and geometric casework to create one of the most sophisticated and elegant forms from New York's Classical era. Attenuated cabriole legs on classical furniture are rare and only found on a small group of card tables, work tables and a dressing table. This work table most closely resembles a pair of card tables in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery with waterleaf-carved legs, paw feet and almost identical carved rosettes on the canted corners above the legs (Yale University Art Gallery, acc. no. 1930.2004a-b). A dressing table that descended in the family of Emily Phyfe Dunham, Duncan Phyfe's grandniece, bears legs similar to those on the Yale card tables and the work table offered here and provides the basis for the attribution to Phyfe's shop (Nancy McClelland, Duncan Phyfe and the English Regency (New York, 1939), pl. 152).
Recessed within rectangular reserves, the carved rosettes are unusual features. In addition to the Yale card tables, virtually identical rosettes are found on two pembroke tables, each with four baluster supports and hairy paw feet (one sold at Christie's, New York, 19 October 1990, lot 300; the other is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery and illustrated and discussed in David L. Barquist, American Tables and Looking Glasses (New Haven, 1992), cat. 69, pp. 158-162).
Recessed within rectangular reserves, the carved rosettes are unusual features. In addition to the Yale card tables, virtually identical rosettes are found on two pembroke tables, each with four baluster supports and hairy paw feet (one sold at Christie's, New York, 19 October 1990, lot 300; the other is in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery and illustrated and discussed in David L. Barquist, American Tables and Looking Glasses (New Haven, 1992), cat. 69, pp. 158-162).