Title
Framed studio photograph of Peranakan Chinese couple
Year/Period
around 1910s
Region
Java
Dimension
Image size: 40.8 x 31 cm (Mount size),
Frame size: 45.1 x 35.5 x 2.2 cm,
Image size: 29 x 20.2 cm
Frame size: 45.1 x 35.5 x 2.2 cm,
Image size: 29 x 20.2 cm
Accession No.
2013-00984
Collection of
Credit Line
Gift of Mr and Mrs Lee Kip Lee
Baba men in the Dutch East Indies were among the first Asians in Southeast Asia to dress in European fashions. Keeping to Chinese imperial regulations, the man still sports a Qing dynasty hairstyle: a queue, where the front of the head is shaved and the back kept long in a tail-like braid. (But the photographer clearly did not remind him to neaten his queue) Indies nyonyas similarly adopted modern fashions – Chinese robes decorated with European needlework details, such as pleats, and lace inserts and flounces.
