Martha Washington Chair by Wallace Nutting

With a career of producing hand-tinted photographs of New England scenes distributed as prints, Wallace Nutting was widely known in the early 20th century when millions of copies of his work were sold. Of the hundreds of professional photographers who were active in the pictorialist genre and competing for the tourist trade, Nutting developed what was by far the largest and most prominent operation, employing nearly 200 colorists, framers and salesmen. He was also a craftsperson, writer and lecturer, and began his career as a Congregational minister. Retiring from the ministry in 1904, he moved from Cranston, Rhode Island, to New York City for a year, then to Southbury, Connecticut, from 1905 to 1912, followed by a move to Framingham, Massachusetts, where he lived for the remainder of his life. Nutting also built furniture, doing reproductions of colonial pieces, including chairs and cabinets. His writings included 20 books such as Old New England Pictures, Furniture of the Pilgrim Century and Virginia Beautiful. Nutting signed very few of the pictures he sold. Because of the sheer number sold, ten million by his own account, it would have been difficult in light of ill health and his interest in publishing and furniture-making for him to sign them all. This accounts for the various signature styles that can be found. Collectors have learned to recognize an authorized signature as well as Wallace Nutting's own. Signature styles can date a picture, and the combination of other elements can authenticate a signature.