Great Britain, ca. 1800
Mahogany with beech and lightwood inlays
Catalog no. 55
This highly unusual British ceremonial chair is one of a pair imported into Charleston, South Carolina, about 1800. Apparently it was used at Union Kilwinning Lodge 4, one of several Masonic lodges that were established there in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
While some southern fraternal, governmental, and religious bodies hired local artisans to produce ceremonial chairs, other organizations preferred to order pieces from Britain, reflecting the South's deeply rooted cultural and economic ties to Britain that proved remarkably durable in areas such as the Low Country. This neoclassical Masonic chair was imported long after America had won political independence from Britain and despite the fact that early national Charleston supported a substantial, highly sophisticated cabinetmaking community quite capable of making such articles.