In 1815 Charles Nicoll Bancker (1777–1869) of Philadelphia ordered some parlor furniture from Duncan Phyfe for his home. From that order, ten mahogany side chairs with lyre backs were delivered to the owner in early 1816, while the remaining two chairs were delivered late, in June. Fortunately, the invoice recording this commission, two exceedingly rare sketches done by Phyfe for his client, and a list of price options survive. From these few pages we learn that Phyfe was the originator of two designs; that the person who ordered the chairs was Charles Bancker and that Bancker eventually chose the lyre-back klismos model with the “cane bottom,” which cost $22 each.

Of this group, ten chairs are in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, while two include this one and one with the Winterthur Museum. Adding further credence, this chair and at least one other example at the Brooklyn Museum share the same inscription on their seat frames: “at Company of Master Craftsman, Flushing. recovered July 3, 1934. Mr. Alto Baltero.”

By the early twentieth century, the pair of chairs was in the collection of Richard T. Haines Halsey, a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Phyfe collector. One can conjecture that Mr. Bancker was satisfied with his order of ten chairs and chose to part with the two late arrivals.