Wallace Nutting's Quarter-sawn Oak Chest Desk

Description:

Wallace Nutting's Quarter-sawn Oak Chest Desk, non-production variant no. 748, c. 1925-1930, part-ebonized with maroon-painted liner moldings framing five front panels and three side panels, block branded mark, ht. 30, lg. 66, wd. 36 in.

Provenance: Purchased from Wallace Nutting Estate by the Nutting's longtime business and personal attorney, Mr. Arthur Gay. Mr. Gay installed the desk at his home in Boston, Massachusetts. The desk was later inherited by his son and installed at his own home in Duxbury, Massachusetts along with Nutting archival legal and business documents, and correspondence. In 1971, the Duxbury house, along with the desk and archive were sold to the consignor. Accompanying this lot are a "late 30's" pen and watercolor illustration depicting the Nutting office titled "Same Old Hole," by Ernest J. Donnelly, a July 19, 1941 (date of Wallace Nutting's death),period-typed Nutting Shops, Park St., Framingham, inventory listing, an October 31, 1944, Appraisal of Personal Property Belonging to the Estate of Mariet G. Nutting with reference to contents of home, studio, and shop, as well as bequeath of the picture business to Donnelly and Svenson, and a written history of the desk from the consignor.

Note: Adapted from a Connecticut chest pattern, the desk being sold differs from production examples with its two typewriter draw-panels and extra front and side panels, while sharing the dimensions of its catalog illustrated production model. Interestingly, office arrangements illustrated in the 1927/1928 Seventh Edition Furniture Catalog, the 1930 Supreme Edition Furniture Catalog, and the 1937 Final Edition Furniture Catalog show the desk, being sold in this auction, pictured in situ. Additionally, in the same photograph is the Peacock and Floral hooked carpet, made by Mariet Nutting, and listed as lot 189, in the October 4, 1941 Parke-Bernet Galleries auction of the Estate of Wallace Nutting. The desk does not appear on any of the inventories done at the shop or at Nuttingholme after Wallace Nutting's death or in the Estate auction catalog.
Estimate $6,000-8,000

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