Sofa

Sofa

Maker:John H. Belter (1804–1863)
Date:1850–60
Geography:Made in New York, New York, United States
Culture:American
Medium:Rosewood
Dimensions:53 1/4 x 66 x 25 in. (135.3 x 167.6 x 63.5 cm)
Classification:Furniture
Credit Line:Purchase, Friends of the American Wing Fund and Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1999

1999.396
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 736
This five-legged sofa exemplifies the Rococo Revival style, popular in America during the 1840s and 1850s, which combined curvilinear forms and cabriole legs from eighteenth-century French sources with the extremely detailed, naturalistic ornament favored in the mid-nineteenth century. A number of American cabinetmakers produced such furnishings for the luxury market, but the German-born Belter has long been recognized for his extraordinary talent. A prolific maker with a large factory by 1856 on what is now the Upper East Side, he was particularly known for his rosewood drawing-room furniture and for his thin, laminated construction and moded forms—as demonstrated here—which were achieved by using a patented method of steam and pressure.