During the early-nineteenth-century Grecian phase of revived classical taste, an attempt was made to create furniture design that was archaeologically correct. However, classical details were often used in ways that had no antique precedent. Thus, New York City craftsmen adapted the lyre, a musical instrument associated with Classical Greece, to the stay rail design of Grecian-style chairs, and the motif was sufficiently popular to be listed as a standard option in the 1810 price book. 

Technical notes: Mahogany, mahogany veneer; ash (front and rear seat rails), cherry (slip seat). While the two Bayou Bend chairs share basically the same design, minor differences of detail, particularly in the lyre, suggest they were originally in different sets. 

Related examples: Winterthur (Montgomery 1966b, no. 73); MMA (Davidson and Stillinger 1985, pp. 146–47, fig. 228; Tracy et al. 1970, no. 27); Sack 1950, p. 61; Milwaukee Art Museum, without the leaf carving on the leg fronts (Jobe et al. 1991, no. 86). A sketch attributed to Duncan Phyfe, now at Winterthur, illustrates a similar chair (Montgomery 1966b, no. 72a).

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.