The Mathews County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 27 discussed the fate of an antique chair that Mathews County loaned to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation for study more than 16 years ago.

The campeachy chair, which long sat in the county’s historic courthouse, was identified as possibly related to Monticello in 1975 and was loaned to the foundation in 1998. The foundation oversees Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville.

In 2014, the foundation’s assistant curator of decorative arts, Diane Ehrenpreis, undertook a study of campeachy chairs in general and determined that Mathews County’s chair was probably made in Virginia sometime between 1815 and 1825. The piece is likely a reproduction of one of the many models of the campeachy chair that were produced in New Orleans during that period, according to a letter from foundation vice president Susan Stein to Mathews County Administrator Mindy Moran.

Because the chair “does not seem to have a Je...