This scroll-back Grecian sofa represents two bodies of furniture produced in New York City in the early nineteenth century. One is a group of expensive caned sofas; the other is a group of high-style seating furniture made of figured maple. References to both caned and Grecian sofas appear in the June 1810 New York price book, indicating that the form was an established entity by that date. The price book also reveals that these caned maple sofas were approximately five times the cost of a base upholstered mahogany model. The later July 1815 price book describes a Grecian sofa with “the foot to form a lion’s paw” that cost £5.3.6 and indicates that preparing the form for caning was an additional two pounds.

Technical notes: Materials were not analyzed microscopically. When the sofa was purchased by Mr. Britton, it was entirely covered in upholstery: only the paw feet were exposed. The maple and extant caning were discovered by Mr. Britton’s upholsterer. The feet may originally have been a dark color.

Related examples: A recamier-style version in a private collection is very similar, except for the eagle heads of the feet, which turn inward (Farnham 1972, p. 444, pl. VII); a mahogany version is in McClelland 1939, pl. 288; Art Institute of Chicago (Naeve 1981, p. 26, no. 41); a set of maple side chairs (see cat. no. F196).
 
Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.