NEW YORK, 1810-1820

The scroll-back side chair with crossed back was popular in early nineteenth-century New York. The first documented sets were three commissioned by William Bayard (1761-1826), who lived at 6 State Street in Manhattan, from Duncan Phyfe (1770-1854) in 1807. The present pair and the Bayard sets all have tablets carved with thunderbolts tied with bowknots, 'Grecian cross' backs with floral carving at the intersections, and turned and reeded legs. One of the chairs offered here, and that in the following lot, also feature urn-turning in the rear stiles, a detail that is seen in related form on two of the Bayard sets. This style became fashionable in New York after the publication of Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration in 1807, the same year the Bayard sets were made (Peter M. Kenny and Michael K. Brown, Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York (New York, 2011), pp. 158-161, cats. 1-3).