The second phase of revived classical taste reached the United States during the first decade of the nineteenth century. In seating furniture design the later forms more nearly approached antique prototypes seen on vase paintings, wall frescoes, and grave stelae than did those of the first phase. The most salient feature was the incorporation of the scrolled line of Grecian chairs and Roman couches into the backs and arms of chairs and sofas, and indeed, “Grecian Sofa” was the contemporary term for an example such as this one. The scrolled back rail here, with reeding and inset panel, conforms to the norm for New York chairs and sofas made by the shop of Duncan Phyfe and others in the late 1810s.

The dolphin motif, also drawn from antiquity, was popular in England following the maritime victories of the Napoleonic wars. In the United States, while dolphin supports were more common to card table design, the motif was also used on sofas. In the particular New York group to which this example belongs, a single twisting dolphin is adroitly adapted to form the leg and scrolled arm. Also characteristic of the group is the dolphin’s tapering blunt nose. Often, as on the Bayou Bend example, an organic seaweed-like branch forms the leg bracket. While it is clear that these New York sofas, which differ from each other in minor details, are the product of the finest craftsmen, it has not been possible to ascribe any to a specific maker or shop.

Technical notes: Mahogany; mahogany (blocks above left rear leg), ash (rear seat rail), cherry (cross brace), eastern white pine (left front leg block). Gold leaf applied over finished mahogany surfaces on the dolphin heads and tails was removed in 1996.

Related examples: MMA (Davidson and Stillinger 1985, p. 158); the White House, Washington, D.C. (White House 1975, pp. 52, 57); Naval Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. (Fitzgerald 1982, p. 118); Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia; Fort Hill, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina (Aronson 1965, p. 402). Related but with the addition of eagles on the back in a private collection (Cooper 1980, pl. 49); Annual Summer New Hampshire Auction, Manchester, August 5–6, 1995, lot 714; Richard Jenrette collection, Tarrytown, New York; Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Arts has an example of related design, but the dolphins are different (Gustafson 1984b, p. 784). A card table with virtually identical dolphins is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (acc. no. M. 82.102).

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.