# Sofa > Attributed to Duncan Phyfe - circa 1810-1820 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/duncan-phyfe/duncan-phyfe-sofa-met-60-4-1/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-04 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Attributed to Duncan Phyfe - **Date:** circa 1810-1820 - **Medium:** Mahogany, tulip poplar, cane, gilded brass - **Dimensions:** 34 x 84 3/4 x 23 3/4 in. (86.4 x 215.3 x 60.3 cm) - **Object type:** Furniture - **Period:** American Federal / early Republic, New York, circa 1810-1820 - **Current location:** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view in the American Wing, Gallery 728 - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A mahogany sofa on crossed curule legs, made in a New York workshop around 1810 to 1820 and catalogued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Attributed to Duncan Phyfe rather than by him. Phyfe almost never labeled or signed his furniture, so nearly everything bearing his name, including this piece, rests on a mixture of family history, inscriptions added by owners rather than the maker, and the trained eye of specialists comparing joinery and carving to the small number of securely documented pieces.This sofa belonged to a large curule-form suite once owned by Thomas Cornell Pearsall, a New York merchant and shipowner, whose family kept it long enough to be photographed in a descendant's parlor in the early twentieth century before it was sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries in November 1946 and bought by the collector C. Ruxton Love Jr., who split the suite between the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of the City of New York and gave the Met his portion, including this sofa, in 1960.The record that follows treats the Phyfe name the way the Museum's own scholarship now insists it be treated: as a graded attribution built from an inscription, a family story, and stylistic judgment, sitting inside a field where furniture has been overattributed to Phyfe for market reasons since at least the 1880s. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **circa 1810-1820-1820** Thomas Cornell Pearsall, New York merchant and shipowner `[documented]` (origin / commission or ownership) Made in a New York workshop attributed to Duncan Phyfe and associated with Pearsall by an inscription stamped on the seat rail and by family tradition. This documents Pearsall's ownership at or near the date of manufacture; it does not document Phyfe's personal hand, which remains an attribution rather than a fact. - **1820-early 20th century** Pearsall family descendants, individuals not named in sources consulted `[unknown]` (descent within the family) No specific intervening owner is documented across roughly a century. The only physical evidence that the suite remained in the family is an early twentieth-century photograph of it in the parlor of one of Pearsall's great-granddaughters. - **early 20th century-1946** Presumed Pearsall descendants `[unknown]` (gap before sale) The consignor of the 1946 Parke-Bernet sale is not named in the sources consulted; it is presumed, but not documented here, to be a Pearsall descendant. - **1946-11-09** Sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York `[documented]` (auction sale) The curule seating suite, including this sofa, was sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries on November 9, 1946, and purchased there by C. Ruxton Love Jr. No lot number or price for this sale was found in the sources consulted. - **1946-1960** C. Ruxton Love Jr., private collection `[documented]` (private ownership) Love bought the suite at the 1946 sale and later divided it between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of the City of New York. - **1960-present** Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (gift) Given to the Museum by C. Ruxton Love Jr. in 1960, accession 60.4.1, along with at least one matching side chair, accession 60.4.4, from the same suite. ## Auction results Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so. - **1946-11-09** Parke-Bernet Galleries, - Estimate: Not published in the sources consulted - Hammer: Not published in the sources consulted - With premium: Not published in the sources consulted - The sale of the Pearsall curule suite, including this sofa, to C. Ruxton Love Jr. on November 9, 1946 is corroborated by multiple secondary sources discussing the Metropolitan Museum's Phyfe holdings, but no lot number, sale title, estimate or price was located. This is recorded as a documented sale event with an undocumented price, rather than as a full auction result. ## Exhibitions - Furniture Masterpieces of Duncan Phyfe, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (object's inclusion not confirmed; the exhibition drew on the wider Phyfe-attributed corpus including material from the Pearsall suite's period and type), 1922 - Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (January 20, 2011 - May 6, 2012), traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (June 20 - September 11, 2012); object's specific inclusion in the checklist not confirmed in sources consulted, 2011-2012 ## Literature - Charles Over Cornelius, Furniture Masterpieces of Duncan Phyfe (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art / Doubleday, Page and Company, 1922), measured drawings by Stanley J. Rowland. - Peter M. Kenny, Michael K. Brown, Frances F. Bretter and Matthew A. Thurlow, Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Yale University Press, 2011). - Deborah Dependahl Waters, 'Is It Phyfe?', American Furniture 1996 (Milwaukee: Chipstone Foundation, 1996). ## Open questions - Is the seat-rail inscription that grounds the Phyfe attribution contemporary with the sofa's construction around 1810-1820, or was it added later when the family tradition was formalized? The sources consulted do not date the inscription itself. - Who owned or kept the suite within the Pearsall family between Thomas Cornell Pearsall's death in 1820 and the early twentieth-century photograph of it in his great-granddaughter's parlor? No individual owner across that span is named in the sources consulted. - Under what circumstances, and consigned by whom, was the suite sold at Parke-Bernet Galleries on November 9, 1946, and what price did this sofa or the group make? No lot number or price was found. - What are C. Ruxton Love Jr.'s life dates and profession, and what governed his decision to split the Pearsall suite between the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of the City of New York rather than keep it together or give it entirely to one institution? - Given that the Metropolitan Museum catalogues a near-identical companion sofa, accession 42.16, one attribution tier lower, as Workshop of Duncan Phyfe rather than Attributed to Duncan Phyfe, what specific, examinable evidence separates the two tiers, and could future technical examination move this sofa's designation either way? - Was this sofa's gilded brass ornament original to its construction, or has it been repaired, replaced or added, given the documented pattern of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century restoration shops altering Federal-period seating furniture before it entered museum collections? ## Sources - [1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection API, object record for accession 60.4.1 (object ID 7595). - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Sofa, Attributed to Duncan Phyfe,' object page, accession 60.4.1, including the Overview description of the Pearsall suite and the attribution basis. - [3] Deborah Dependahl Waters, 'Is It Phyfe?', American Furniture 1996, Chipstone Foundation. Discusses the Pearsall suite's ink-inscribed chair, the Henry Dorr-branded comparison chair, and the documented case of Meier and Hagen selling reproductions as 'Phyfe's Antique' and 'Phyfe's pattern,' including the Hagen-labeled 1922 exhibition card table and the Hagen-family restoration inscription on a sofa shown in 1922. - [4] Chipstone Foundation, American Furniture 2012, review of Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York (Peter M. Kenny, Michael K. Brown, Frances F. Bretter, Matthew A. Thurlow; Metropolitan Museum of Art / Yale University Press, 2011). Source for the William Bayard and Thomas Cornell Pearsall patron references, the 1929 Girl Scouts Loan Exhibition, and the Pearsall family photograph. - [5] Peter M. Kenny, 'Changing Perspectives on an Iconic American Craftsman: Duncan Phyfe at The Metropolitan Museum,' Incollect. Source for the 1834 Benjamin Clark invoice, the 1841 Millford Plantation bill of lading, and the 1922 exhibition's narrow focus on Phyfe's 1805-1820 'best period.' - [6] Antiques and The Arts Weekly, 'Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker In New York At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art.' Source for the exhibition's run through May 6, 2012, the catalogue authorship, and the 'workshop of Phyfe' versus direct attribution distinction. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Duncan Phyfe,' consolidating birth, emigration, career and retirement dates. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with the 2011 Kenny, Brown, Bretter and Thurlow catalogue or a scholarly biographical dictionary entry. - [8] Departures, 'Love Among the Ruins,' profile of collectors Ruxton and Audrey Love, their Duncan Phyfe furniture, Napoleonic relics, Benin bronzes and Gandharan sculpture. Full article text could not be independently re-fetched at time of writing; content drawn from indexed excerpt. Flagged for a follow-up direct read. - [9] Yale University Art Gallery, 'Curule: Ancient Design in American Federal Furniture.' Source for the sella curulis's origin and meaning in Roman antiquity and its revival in American Federal furniture design. - [10] Wikimedia Commons, file metadata for File:Sofa MET DP171097.jpg, confirming CC0 licensing and Metropolitan Museum accession 60.4.1. - [11] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection API, object record for accession 59.197 (object ID 7594), a separate sofa also given by C. Ruxton Love Jr., in 1959. - [12] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection API and object page, accession 42.16 (object ID 7593), catalogued as Attributed to the Workshop of Duncan Phyfe, gift of Mrs. Harry Horton Benkard, 1942. - [13] The Metropolitan Museum of Art object record for accession 60.4.4, a side chair from the same Pearsall suite and the same 1960 gift as this sofa. - [14] The Metropolitan Museum of Art object record for accession 66.221.1, a couch attributed to the Workshop of Duncan Phyfe in the later Grecian Plain style. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.