Pottier & Stymus, (NY 1859-1888)

Walnut with Oak Secondary Wood
Size: 138 x 107 x 42 in.
Signed on the rear in pencil by several of the workmen.

At over 11 feet tall and profusely carved, this cabinet was created to be the materwork of Pottier and Stymus, the prominent and probably largest design firm and manufacturer of high quality furniture in the United States in the 1870's. Jacobean in style and monumental in scale, it is unique to American 19th furniture design.This cabinet was made, along with two large accompanying chairs, specifically for display a the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. There it was met with rave reviews. One critic said:

"Even Paris, the capital which seems to monopolize the cabinetmaker's art and cabinet furniture in general, has sent nothing worthy of being compared, in richness of style, with the beautiful things exhibited by Pottier and Stymus" (Golden Book, 1876, p.5)

After it's exhibition in Philadelphia, Auguste Pottier donated the cabinet and chairs to the then young, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In 1928, due to it's large size, the museum chose to deacquisition the cabinet and sold it at public auction. The whereabouts of it were unknown until it surfaced in the Detroit area in the mid-1980's The two chairs are still on view at the MMA.