In the brave days of old

Description

Wallace Nutting staged this photograph in the entrance hall of the Wentworth-Gardner House on Mechanic Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A model in period costume walks down the main staircase beneath a molded elliptical arch into the entrance hall, resting her right hand on the railing and holding a garment that may be a scarf or shawl in her left hand. There are two rugs at the foot of the stairs. In the lower right corner, there is the copyright notice: "W.N. 1915." Mrs. Elizabeth Rindge Wentworth built the house in 1760 as a wedding gift for her son Thomas, who died in 1768. In 1793, Major William Gardner bought the house and lived there until he died in 1833. In 1915, Wallace Nutting purchased the house, restored the building, and added it as one of the five sites in his for-profit enterprise, the Wallace Nutting Chain of Colonial Pictorial Houses.