These four chairs are part of an original set of six of which two are now in the Museum of the City of New York and are the most desirable model attributed to the Phyfe workshop. A large number of these were exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum around a large banquet table at the entrance to the Americana Wing.
Provenance: The estate of Schuyler Chaplin, who the New York Times called “the patrician New Yorker and white-shoe impresario who glided through society and a string of jobs in the arts-including general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, cultural affairs commissioner of New York City, and dean of the School of Arts at Columbia University”. This set is known as the “Burden family chairs” as they were inherited by Schuyler from his uncle, from the Burdens, a well-known established New York society family commingled with the Vanderbilt line, etc..
Height: 33 in. Width: 17 ½ in. Depth: 16 ¼ in.
Revised March 9, 2026 11:13 pm