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Artist or Maker: LABELED BY DUNCAN PHYFE (1768-1854), NEW YORK, 1820-1830
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Provenance: Sold Sotheby's New York, January 28-30, 1988, lot 1820
Israel Sack, Inc., New York
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Literature: Israel Sack, American Antiques from Israel Sack Collection (New York), vol. 9, p. 2442, fig. P6037.
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Notes: Displaying the refinement of the Classical style, this superbly crafted card table is one of a very few surviving forms labled by Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854), one of early America's most renowned cabinetmakers. The label bears the address of his shop at 170 Fulton Street, which is depicted in a well-known watercolor (fig. 1) and the printed date of 1820, and was used by Phyfe from 1820, when Partition Street was renamed Fulton until 1837, when the cabinetmaker formed a partnership with his sons. Only about fifteen examples with his label are known to survive and scholars have surmised that his fame and dominance of the New York furniture industry during this era made such identification unnecessary (see Michael Kevin Brown, "Duncan Phyfe" (Master's thesis, Winterthur Program in Early American Culture, the University of Delaware, 1978), pp. vii, 26; Jeanne Vibert Sloane, "A Duncan Phyfe bill and the furniture it documents," The Magazine Antiques (May 1987), p. 1107). For other items with the same label, see a secretary desk made by Thomas Lattimer Bowie (Nancy McClelland, Duncan Phyfe and the English Regency (New York, 1939), pp. 247, 264; Sotheby's New York, October 24-25, 1986, lot 215; Christie's New York, October 8, 1997, lot 86).
With its D-shaped top, tapering faceted supports and stretchers, and waterleaf-carved legs, this card table is closely related to an unlabeled pair made for John Jacob Astor (McClelland, plate 239, p. 253; Christie's New York, October 8, 1998, lot 82). The table offered here features elegant details, such as the brass-inlaid stringing and the ormolu mount, and survives in remarkable condition with its interior lined with its original marbleized paper and elaborately scroll decorated castors.
