This woman's tunic is made from silk songket patterned in stripes of blue and gold, and red with a gold curvilinear creeper pattern. Tunics made of songket, such as this, were worn by aristocratic ladies for their weddings. This one was reportedly worn in 1851 by Tengku Fatimah, daughter of Sultan Mahmud of Riau Lingga (r. 1841-57) for her marriage to Yum Tuan Mohamed Yusoff of Riau Lingga, who became the Bugis Yamtuan Muda (viceroy) in 1858. It was acquired for the National Collection in 1938 from a descendant of Tengku Fatimah living in Sultan Gate, Singapore. Songket, sometimes dubbed ‘the cloth of gold’, is made using either gold or silver wrapped threads as a supplementary weft (the horizontal threads in the weave), woven in between the regular weft threads. Intricately made, it was traditionally strictly reserved for aristocrats in most Malay communities. It has distinctive regional styles and is worn as a symbol of regional identity.
