Images(2)

Side chair

Date1765-1775

Attributed to John Nutt

OriginAmerica, South Carolina, Charleston

MediumMahogany with cypress or yellow pine.

DimensionsOH: 37 1/2"; OW: 21 3/4"; OD: 18"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2002-13

DescriptionDESCRIPTION: Side chair with trapezoidal seat, Marlboro legs with a molded bead down each leg and around the top of seat rails; H-plan stretchers and one stretcher between rear legs; uncarved serpentine crest rail; uncarved pierced splat with interlaced design and gothic quatrefoil.

CONSTRUCTION: Shoe: One piece; a one-inch high strip of mahogany, 1/16 inch thick, running the full width of the rear rail is nailed with fine wrought finishing nails to the rear rail with the top of strip flush with seat rails; a nine-inch strip of pine is nailed on top of the mahogany strip through the rear rail with cut nails to support the slip seat (this pine strip was probably added when the current slip seat was introduced to the chair).
Label TextMigrating artisans often transplanted designs and fabrication details as they moved from one place to another. Cabinetmaker John Nutt is an example. After working in Charleston, South Carolina, where he likely made this side chair for John and Anna Hayes Bennett, Nutt moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1770 or 1771. There he continued to make furniture like the armchair illustrated here, with the same construction features and many of the same designs seen on his Charleston goods.
ProvenanceA brass plate applied to the interior of the front rail states: "This chair is the last of twelve belonging to Thomas Bennett, born 1754, died 1814. It was made after his marriage to Anna Hayes Warnock, held on June 19th, 1774." This chair remained in the Bennett family until it was sold at Christie's in their Americana sale of June 19th, 1996.

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