Card Table

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the time when this card table was acquired from the collection of Louis Guerineau Myers, one of the great early connoisseurs and collectors of American furniture, it was attributed to the shop of Duncan Phyfe. The table bore that association for many years due to its elegant design and superb workmanship. Without documentation or any history of family ownership, however, it is difficult to justify assigning the table to the Phyfe shop. Recent scholarship has shown that as many as 300 cabinetmakers were at work in New York City in any given year between 1810 and 1820, and many of them were capable of rendering high-quality wares in this distinctive New York regional style.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art