The long-awaited Met exhibit on the legendary American furniture maker Duncan Phyfe is on again at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and will be open during Americana Week.
A poor immigrant when he arrived in America from his native Scotland, Phyfe acquired wealth and fame through hard work and exceptional talent. Throughout the first half of the 19th century he made neoclassical furniture for the social and mercantile elite of New York, Philadelphia, and the American South. His personal style, characterized by superior proportions, balance, symmetry, and restraint, became the New York local style. Many apprentices and journeymen exposed to this distinctive style by serving a stint in the Phyfe shop or by copying the master cabinetmaker’s designs helped to create and sustain this local school of cabinetmaking. Demand for Phyfe’s work reached its peak between 1805 and 1820, and he remained a dominant figure in the trade until 1847, when he retired at the age of 77. Within the short span of a single generation, however, the work of the master cabinetmaker was all but forgotten.
Duncan Phyfe (1770 - 1854) Side chair ca. 1805-1810 Gift of Goodhue Livingston New-York Historical Society
Because Phyfe’s furniture was seldom signed, yet widely imitated, it is sometimes difficult to determine with accuracy which works he actually made. The exhibition breaks new ground by matching rare bills of sale and similar documents with furniture whose history of ownership is known, thereby codifying his style over time.
In the early 1800s, furniture from the workshop of New York City cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe (1770–1854) was in such demand that he was referred to as the “United States Rage.” Opening December 20 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York—the first retrospective on Phyfe in 90 years—will serve to re-introduce this artistic and influential master
Sofa. United States, New York, ca. 1810-15. Attributed to the workshop of Duncan Phyfe Mahogany, cherry, pine, gilt brass, and modern upholstery. On loan to the Cincinnati Art Museum from the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Ohio.
cabinetmaker to a contemporary audience. The full chronological sweep of Phyfe’s distinguished career will be featured, including examples of his best-known furniture based on the English Regency designs of Thomas Sheraton, work from the middle and later stages of his career when he adopted the richer “archaeological” antique style of the 1820s, and a highly refined, plain Grecian style based on French Restauration prototypes. The exhibition brings together nearly 100 works from private and public collections throughout the United States. Highlights of the exhibition include some never-before-seen documented masterpieces and furniture descended directly in the Phyfe family as well as the cabinetmaker’s own tool chest.
Following its presentation at the Metropolitan Museum, the exhibition will be shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art) will be released on October 25, 2011.
