This chair and its nine mates are part of a set (60.4.1–60.4.15), including a sofa, two armchairs, and two footstools. Other chairs from the set are owned by the Museum of the City of New York and the Winterthur Museum. The attribution to Duncan Phyfe is based on the provenance of the set and is strengthened by Phyfe's sketch, now at Winterthur, of a similar chair. The curule shape, also known as the Grecian cross, is based on a Roman magistrate's folding chair and appeared in many early nineteenth-century design books.

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