PETER KENNY: Most of the furniture in this room was used by an eighteenth-century New York Cty couple, Samuel and Judith Verplanck. Chairman of the American Wing, Morrison Heckscher.

MORRISON HECKSCHER: It is the one such place, the one such room anywhere that we know, where one can see all of one family's furniture shown very much the way it would have been in the 18th century, when it was new. The room is furnished with a suite of matching chairs and tables, particularly the card table in the center. All obviously made by one craftsman in the same style, which is a very English mid-18th century Georgian or so-called Chippendale style of furniture. But clearly the work of a New York City craftsman. In addition, there are the family portraits, two of which you can see over the settee on the far wall, by America's greatest 18th century portraitist, John Singleton Copley.

AMELIA PECK: That reminds me of two other paintings that are in the room. The two little pictures above the mantel…

PETER KENNY: Amelia Peck, Decorative Arts curator, tells their story:

AMELIA PECK: Samuel and Judith Verplanck eventually had a very big falling-out. And the falling-out came in 1776 when the British occupied Manhattan. And Samuel was a patriot and very upset by this and fled New York, Manhattan, and went to his country house up river. Judith, however, being brought up in Holland, was a royalist and stayed in New York. While in New York, the family history says she formed an attachment to Sir William Howe who was the commander-in-chief of the British army occupying Manhattan.

PETER KENNY: Those two paintings were a gift from him. And they both depict Eros, god of love. One is “The Temptation of Eros.” The other is “The Victory of Eros.”

AMELIA PECK: And they can only really be interpreted as a love token or love gift.