Furniture Masterpieces of Duncan Phyfe

Duncan Phyfe is the only early American cabinet-maker to whom a very large group of furniture may be attributed on documentary grounds. Much of the attribution to other American cabinet-makers is based upon purely circumstantial evidence, but in the case of Phyfe there exist documented examples of practically every type that is shown herewith. The aim, therefore, has been to present at least all the general known types of furniture from Phyfe's best period and as many variations of these types as space would permit.

It has also been attempted to place this art-craft of the Early Federal Period in the United States against the background of the time, thus to relate the utilitarian art to the influences - artistic, social, and economic - which controlled to a large degree the forms which it took.

The book has been a result of the assembling of material for an exhibition of the work of Duncan Phyfe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the search for Phyfe furniture there appeared a larger group of more varied material than had ever been supposed to exist.

It was deemed, therefore, advisable to put into permanent form this record of Phyfe's handiwork as it is known to-day, with no pretense to an exhaustive treatise. It may be affirmed that the book includes most of what is known about Phyfe and his work up to date, but the many surprising finds during the search for material to exhibit would lead any expert to speak with some hesitation in saying that all types or all variations of types of Phyfe furniture are included between these covers. At least those that are shown will form a valuable basis for future attribution.

Knickerbocker New York is gone! In the tall canyons of lower Manhattan, few are the landmarks which recall to us the little city whose more fashionable citizens drove on bright spring afternoons to the pleasant country suburb of Greenwich Village, doubtless relieved, good horsemen as they were, that the hard paving of Broadway stopped at City Hall! The residences of people of fashion were then found on the Battery, while of the highest respectability were lower Broadway, upper Pearl and Nassau streets. Broad and Wall. Beyond the City Hall the softly rolling landscape was ribboned with shady roads, flanked here and there either by charming suburban homes to which the city families retreated during the summer heat, or by tidy farms whose owners were blissfully ignorant of eventual realty values. Surely a provincial city but, none the less, developing more rapidly than it knew into a cosmopolitan one !

It was not until the very last years of its existence that the consciousness of a Knickerbocker New York was formulated into anything definite. The Dutch traditions which had remained so important an element in the eighteenth-century town had hung about the city without occasioning any self-conscious attention or comment. It remained for a brilliant little group of young writers to utilize these traditions in their literary efforts and thus to preside in a two-fold capacity both as registrars of an epoch which was dying and as heralds of a new era which was just begun.

The first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century were marked in New York by an amazing activity which extended into all departments of human endeavor. There was a rapid acceleration of commercial growth which called forth a corresponding development of mechanical invention. A social consciousness was evolving from the compact society of a provincial city into the beginning of a cosmopolitan attitude toward local affairs. Civic improvements of surprising farsightedness were begun, and politics, both local and national, were hotly debated. The artistic expression of these contemporary interests kept equal pace. The artists who created and the patrons who supported the artistic achievements of the day were all in close touch with the life of the city in its various phases.

The result of this expansion of interests and activities was the rapid outgrowing of the Knickerbocker town both literally and figuratively. The very consciousness of the Knickerbocker tradition, for the first time definitely expressed, was in one way a romantic creation to which was lent the glamour of remoteness, and to which point was given by the survival up to date of many traits and customs of the early Dutch inhabitants.

It was at the beginning of this interesting and important period that Duncan Phyfe came to live and ply his craft in New York. His early struggles to find a foothold coincided with the early years of the century, while the continually increasing recognition of his sincere craftsmanship and consummate artistry kept pace with the changes in the city's life and thought. His best work was done during this first quarter of the century and constitutes an important record of the cultural outlook of the people of the day. A brief glance, therefore, at the New York of the time, the New York which saw the accomplishment of Phyfe's finest work, will give a necessary background against which to judge this utilitarian art which served its purpose of contributing largely to the creation of worthy standards of taste in the public of the time.

By ten o'clock on the morning of the last day of the year 1799 a sombre throng of citizens had assembled in Broadway near the triangular park which this thoroughfare formed with Chatham and Chambers streets. A muted key was set by the frequent signs of mourning visible throughout the orderly crowd and was emphasized by the contrast with the colors of the drooping flags, the brilliant hues of uniforms, military and naval, and the shining insignia of the foreign diplomats and their suites, the philanthropic societies, the Masonic lodges, and the Society of the Cincinnati. In ordered ranks the cortege formed, each group falling into its appointed place - citizens, foreigners of various nations, representatives of the army, navy, and militia, of the civil government, paternal and philanthropic societies, mercantile groups, musical associations and clergy. Near the end came the great catafalque surmounted by the urn, glittering with burnished gold, draped in black, and flanked by eight pall bearers. Thus with pomp and ceremony was the funeral of the great Washington commemorated by his fellow citizens of the country which he more than any one man had helped to found, and of the city which for a short time was its capital.

The bier, followed by the General's horse caparisoned in black, and led by two negro grooms, passed down the east side of the Common to the head of Beekman Street, thence through Beekman and Pearl streets up Wall Street to the Federal Hall. It was here on the 30th of April, 1789, that Washington had taken the oath of office as first President of the United States, and in recognition of this fact a short pause was made before the building. Following Broad and Beaver streets, it passed around the Bowling Green in front of the Government House, which had been built in the expectation that New York would be the capital of the republic. Through the double rows of the marchers the symbolic urn was carried up Broadway and into St. Paul's Chapel, where it was placed before the altar. Solemn memorial services were held, a funeral oration was delivered by Gouvemeur Morris, and musical eulogies were chanted. The people dispersed to their homes, perhaps to discuss the great works of the first President of the new republic, perhaps to  speculate upon the future of that republic in the new century which was just beginning.

The death of Washington, practically coinciding as it did with the opening of the new century, marked the end of one period in the country's history and the beginning of a new. The trying years of war, the more trying years of the consolidation of independence won, were over. The Government of the United States of America was organized and founded upon a constitution. The time had come for the new country to try its mettle in competition with the great world without, no longer as a colonial possession, but as an independent nation conscious of its strength, the extent of which could be gauged only by its exercise.

The route followed by the marchers in the Memorial Parade may well be taken as a summary outline of the city as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Carrying out in the main the lines of growth suggested by the old Dutch town, the lower end of Manhattan was divided by streets which followed generally the shore lines of the East and Hudson rivers and were intersected at irregular intervals by cross streets running from river to river. The present location of the City Hall, which was not yet begun, marked a northern limit to any real city development. There, on the "Common," stood the Bridewell, the City Alms House, and the Prison. Most of the country north of this point retained a purely rural aspect. Within easy reach was the Collect Pond around which youths and maidens sauntered on Sunday afternoons in summer or upon whose frozen surface they skated in winter. It was here in '96 or '97 that John Fitch had made his crude experiments in steam navigation. Other uptown resorts for pleasure were the Old Vauxhall at the corner of Warren and Greenwich streets, a house built by Sir Peter Warren and a public garden patterned after its famous London original, while various road houses along the East River offered in their menus tempting specialties to the summer boating expeditions and winter sleighing parties which came their way. In so small a town as this New York there was no exclusively residential section, but in all the streets the residence and the shop, the church, the tavern, and the market elbowed each other without giving or taking offence. The finest houses now being built of brick with slate roofs were on the Battery and in its immediate neighbourhood, lower Broadway and its intersecting side streets. Broadway was the Bond Street of New York and contained many fashionable and elegant shops. Ah-eady at this time New York had begun to feel itself the leading city of the eastern seaboard. Its location immediately rendered it the most important port for European import as well as the most central point for domestic export. Founded originally as a trading post - not as a haven for religious or political freedom - it was but natural that the commercial aspect of the city should always have assumed a preponderant place and that the marts of trade should have stood cheek by jowl with the church and the dwelling.

English though the city had been since the end of the seventeenth century, the Dutch tradition had been tenacious, particularly in the outlying country districts in New Jersey, up the Hudson, and on Long Island. In these districts the changes in tradition, in customs and usage, had come slowly, while in the city itself a much more rapid development had occurred due to the increasing number of immigrants from beyond the borders of the Low Countries. England preponderantly, of course, Ireland, Italy, and France had all contributed to the growingly cosmopolitan population of the town. The French Revolution, with the resulting disorganization, led to a particularly large influx of cultivated Frenchmen. In numbers perhaps not greater than those of other nationalities which were coming at the same time, the conditions in France were such that the emigres came almost wholly from the educated classes, members of the lesser nobility, and of the professional and artistic groups.

Thus the original vigour of the city was reinforced by fresh infusions from abroad, in the repeated additions to its population of residents whose very presence in the new land argued their possession of sturdy bodies, active minds, and not a little imagination. All of this vigorous growth in population was paralleled by commercial prosperity, a proportionate increase in public and private wealth, a constantly widening horizon of political and cultural interests - in short, the beginnings of a cosmopolitan and somewhat self-conscious attitude toward the city itself and the world beyond its walls. Lengthy and detailed accounts of European affairs, predominantly the activities of Napoleon, fill large portions of the contemporary newspapers, as do the notices of arrival from and departures for Europe of those luxuries of fashionable life which each continent could offer to the other.