Delaware area, late 18th century mahogany with poplar, yellow pine, and oak secondary, arched back and rolled arms, deeply serpentine front rail, on tapered legs, fine modern upholstery, 39-1/2 x 93-1/2 x 31 in.

Provenance: By descent in the Stockton, Johns and Van Dyke families of Newcastle, Delaware; sold Brunk Auctions, November 16th, 2013, lot 462; Private Collection, Asheville, North Carolina

Notes: Amstel House in Newcastle, Delaware, served as the home of Delaware's first governor, Nicholas Van Dyke, and was the site of his daughter Anna's wedding to Kensey Johns III. The family remained in the Newcastle area after moving from the Amstel House in 1789. Thomas Stockton (1781-1846), governor of Delaware, was the grand-nephew of Richard Stockton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His marriage to Fidelia Rogerson Johns, daughter of Anna and Kensey Johns III, in 1804 in Newcastle, united the Stockton family with two other prominent families, Johns and Van Dyke. The Johns family had moved to Delaware from Anne Arundel County, Maryland. When Amstel House became the property of the Newcastle Historical Society in 1929, Elizabeth Moore, granddaughter of Thomas and Fidelia Stockton, donated numerous objects to the Society. Given the sumptuous design and probable date of this sofa, it was perhaps made on the occasion of the marriage of Governor Van Dyke's daughter in 1784, she married Kensey Johns, Sr., of a prominent Newcastle family. President Washington attended the wedding. At the time that many of the Stockton-Johns family heirlooms were acquired by the Amstel House at historic Newcastle, an exact copy of this sofa was made for the parlor of the former governor's mansion.