How Do You Identify A Duncan Phyfe Table?
Furniture styles come and go, but Duncan Phyfe is a perennial favorite. Warm wood color and pleasing forms are hallmarks of the style. Duncan Phyfe (also known as Duncan Fife) was a New York City craftsman whose company operated in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Phyfe has become the generic term for American-made antique or neoclassical style furniture influenced by classical Greek and Roman forms and ornamentation. While Phyfe pieces are prevalent due to an abundance of reproductions made in the 1930s and ’40s, finding an original is rare. Look for classic Duncan Phyfe characteristics such as carved reeds, turned “urn” posts and pedestals, draped swags, acanthus leaves, lion-paw feet, rosettes, lyres, wheat ears and trumpets on tables. Lyre-backed chairs are another benchmark of the Phyfe style. Inspect and feel the wood. Early Phyfe furniture was made of mahogany, a warm dark wood with deep red overtones. It was not unusual for Phyfe to pay $1,000 per log for mahogany from Cuba or S
