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Duncan Phyfe

Loch Fannich, Scotland, 1768 - 1854, New York

BiographyPhyfe, Duncan
(b Loch Fannich, nr Inverness, 1768; d New York, Aug 16, 1854).
Oscar P. Fitzgerald
https://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2319/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T067248
Published online: 2003
updated and revised, 22 September 2015; updated bibliography, 15 July 2008; updated and revised, 27 September 1999

American cabinetmaker of Scottish birth. He immigrated to America with his family about 1784 and settled in Albany, NY, where he served his apprenticeship. About 1792 he moved to New York and opened his own shop; his business prospered, and he moved to a new location on Partition Street (now Fulton Street). As his reputation spread, the most fashionable people in the city, including wealthy New York merchants John Jacob Astor, William Bayard, and De Witt Clinton, sought his services. His shop grew to be one of the largest in the city, and he shipped furniture to customers in New Jersey, Philadelphia, the West Indies, and the south, particularly Charleston, SC, and Savannah where he had his own agent.

Phyfe was an important disseminator of the new English Adam and Regency taste, and his name is synonymous with these neat Neo-classical styles as they developed in New York in the early 19th century. His best furniture is characterized by the use of dark Santo Domingo mahogany, reeding and carved water leaves, lyres (see fig.), paw feet, swags, tassels, bowknots, and cornucopia. In 1808 Phyfe made some of the earliest furniture in America with Empire details for Louisa Throop, including a French-style fall-front secretary with lion’s paw feet (priv. col., see McClelland, pl. 284). The chairs have carved paw feet, sabre legs based on Grecian sources, lyre-shaped backs, and scrolled crest rails (priv. col., see McClelland, pl. 287). In 1837 his two sons, William Phyfe (b 1799) and James Phyfe (b 1797), became partners in the business. In that year he made a parlour suite for Samuel A. Foot, former governor of Connecticut, in the heavier Empire style, which he later called ‘butcher furniture’ (New York, Met.). After William left the firm in 1840 it became known as D. Phyfe & Son. Duncan Phyfe retired in 1847, having amassed substantial property and a large fortune. His prolific shop and prominent clientele earned him a well-deserved reputation as one of the most influential American cabinetmakers in the early 19th century (see fig.). Some pieces of furniture made by Phyfe can be seen in the Phyfe Room at the H. F. du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE.

Bibliography
N. McClelland: Duncan Phyfe and the English Regency, 1795–1830 (New York, 1939/R 1980)
E.A. Ingerman: ‘Personal Experiences of an Old New York Cabinetmaker’, Antiques, vol.84 (1963), pp. 567–80
M. K. Brown: Duncan Phyfe (MA Thesis; Newark, U. DE, 1978)
R. Reese: ‘Duncan Phyfe and Charles-Honoré Lannuier: Cabinetmakers of Old New York’, Art and Antiques, vol.7(5) (1982), pp. 56–61
Classical Taste in America 1800–1840 (exh. cat. by W. Cooper; Baltimore, MD, Mus. A., 1993)
M. Hecksher: ‘Duncan Phyfe, revisitus’, Antiques, vol.151 (1997), pp. 236–9
C. R. Berlin: ‘An Important Rosewood and Cast-iron Gueridon Attributed to Duncan Phyfe and Sons’, Mag. Ant., vol.157(5) (May 2000), pp. 770–77
Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York (exh. cat. by P. M. Kenny and others, New York, Met.; Houston, TX, Mus. F. A., 2012)

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