Lot Essay
The design of this work table successfully 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 Yale University Art Gallery illustrated here with waterleaf-carved legs, paw feet and almost identical carved rosettes on the canted corners above the legs. 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). The remaining examples in this group all feature reeded legs and lack waterleaf carving (a card table sold in these Rooms, The Collection of Ronald Kane, 22 January 1994, lot 376; a work table sold at Sotheby's New York, 28-30 January 1988, lot 1810; a work table sold at Sotheby's New York, 23-24 June 1993, lot 455).
Recessed within rectangular reserves, the carved rosettes are unusual features. In addition to the Garvan Collection card table illustrated here virtually identical rosettes are found on two pembroke tables, each with four baluster supports and hairy paw feet (one sold in these Rooms, 19 October 1990, lot 300; the other is in the collection of 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 Garvan Collection card table illustrated here virtually identical rosettes are found on two pembroke tables, each with four baluster supports and hairy paw feet (one sold in these Rooms, 19 October 1990, lot 300; the other is in the collection of 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.