ATTRIBUTED TO THE SHOP OF DUNCAN PHYFE (1768-1854), NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, CIRCA 1818

This exceptional set of chairs can be attributed to the shop of Duncan Phyfe based on surviving documented examples and a sketch that is attributed to Phyfe. The sketch was found with a bill of sale that Phyfe sent to Charles N. Bancker in 1816 and features two chairs that together illustrate all the elements found in these chairs (see Charles F. Montgomery, American Furniture: The Federal Period (New York, 1966), cat. 72a). The chairs exhibit similar carved cornocopiae, caned seats, reeded front rails, hairy legs and paw feet and croisillion and rosette splats. Additional similarities to chairs documented to Phyfe's shop strengthen the attribution. The same croisillion back decorates the suite of furniture made for Thomas Cornell Pearsall and now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Marshall B. Davidson and Elizabeth Stillinger, The American Wing: The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1985), p.71). In 1816, Phyfe's shop made a large group of furniture for James Lefferts Brinckerhoff that included a pair of lyre-back side chairs with caned seats, reeded front rails, and hairy legs and paw feet closely related to the chairs offered here (Jeanne Vibert Sloane, "A Duncan Phyfe Bill and the Furniture It Documents," Antiques (May 1987), fig.7). A pair of identical chairs are illustrated in Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack, vol.1, no. 545, p. 213.

In 1944, a set of chairs that appear to comprise four of the group offered here were sold at auction, along with a matching settee now in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (see Parke-Bernet Galleries, Americana Collection of the Late Mrs. J. Amory Haskell, part two, May 17-20, 1944, lot 762). According to the catalogue entry, the chairs and the settee were made by Duncan Phyfe in 1818 for Henry McFarlan of New York City.