Sofa Table

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Sofa Table

About the Item

Attributed to Duncan Phyfe and Sons (active 1837-40), New York Mahogany, with gilt brass castors 29 7/8 in. high, 24 in. wide, 36 3/4 in. long; 56 1/8 in. long (with both leaves extended). Although drop-leaf tables of all sizes were an important staple of cabinetmaking establishments during the neoclassical period in the United States, sofa tables, which were originally used in front of a sofa, were only rarely produced. Stylistically, the present fits neatly into the production of later neoclassical furniture made in New York in the later 1830s and possibly into the early 1840s. Its planar design recalls the furniture that Duncan Phyfe made about 1837 in what Thomas Gordon Smith has dubbed the “Grecian plain style” (see “Living With Antiques: Millford Plantation in South Carolina,” The Magazine Antiques CLI [May 1997], p. 739) for New York lawyer Samuel A. Foot’s residence at 678 Broadway, New York, and now installed in The Greek Revival Parlor in The American Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (see Berry B. Tracy et al., 19th Century America – Furniture and Other Decorative Arts, exhib. cat. [New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970], no. 79 illus. in color), and also the extensive quantity of furnishings made by Phyfe and Son for John Laurence Manning (1816-89) at Millford Plantation in 1840 (see Smith, pp. 733-741). Comprised of simplified, yet boldly architectonic, elements, the table features broad, flat surfaces ornamented with especially rich mahogany veneers. In keeping with the French Restauration aesthetic of the moment, elaborate carving and ormolu mounts have been eliminated and the rich decorative effects have been achieved exclusively through the use of Fine mahogany veneers and such refined details as the very delicate, flat turned medallions, or bosses, that ornament the four beautifully drawn scrolls that support the leaves at both ends of the table. The present table is extremely similar actually, virtually identical in size, form, and detail—to another table in a New York private collection (see Elizabeth Feld and Stuart P. Feld, Of the Newest Fashion: Masterpieces of American Neoclassical Decorative Arts, exhib. cat. [New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 2007], pp. 64 illus., 65 illus, and 94 no. 33). Yet another table of slightly larger size, huskier in scale, and with variant feet, was included in the Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition, Duncan Phyfe-Master Cabinetmaker in New York, which was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011–12, and subsequently at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in 2012 (text by Peter Kenny and Michael Brown; pp. 240–41). Of that table, Peter Kenny wrote: “The last known New York cabinetmakers’ price book, published in 1834, continues to include a heading for a sofa table. Some of the refinements that appear on the present table [ie, the table exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum] appear under this heading as “extras,” including veneering the top and ‘making the flies as rule joints to show as brackets in front of the table’. On this table, the brackets have precisely matched cuts of mahogany veneer and Phyfe’s typically rimmed convex discs (see fig. 116). The quality of the crotch-mahogany veneers applied to the top are also truly extraordinary and lends credit to the Phyfe family’s long-standing claim that the finest-quality mahogany logs and crotches imported to New York from the Caribbean were referred to as ‘Phyfe logs’.” The same description applies as well to the present table. All three of these very rare sofa tables exemplify the best of the production of the Phyfe workshop in its later years, indicating that although there may have been a change in style consistent with what was going on in Paris at the time, there was no diminution in quality during the period when one or two of Phyfe’s sons worked with him. An identical table in rosewood was published in “The Rawson family of cabinetmakers in Providence, Rhode Island,” by Eleanor Bradford Monahon, which appeared in The Magazine Antiques Vol. 118 (July 1980), p. 146 fig. 23, with an erroneous attribution to George Burrill Rawson of Providence, Rhode Island, about 1850. The caption to the illustration reads: “An undated note in the Rawson family scrapbook written by George Rawson’s daughter, Anna probably [emphasis here] refers to this table: ‘parlor table made by my father in his young days and sold to Seth Adams of Providence, in the later part of his life bought it back’.” But the so-called “Rawson” table is also likely from the Phyfe shop.

Attributed to:
Duncan Phyfe (Cabinetmaker)
Dimensions:
Height: 29.88 in (75.9 cm)Width: 56.13 in (142.58 cm)Depth: 36.75 in (93.35 cm)
Style:
Neoclassical (In the Style Of)
Materials and Techniques:
Brass,Mahogany
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
19th Century
Date of Manufacture:
Later 1830s
Condition:
Seller Location:
New York, NY
Reference Number:
Seller: FAPG 20425D1stDibs: LU9032987686

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