Title
Bench
Year/Period
First half of the 20th century
Region
China
Object Type
Material
Technique
Dimension
Object size: 88.7 x 186.3 x 60.0 cm
Accession No.
2019-00394
Collection of
Credit Line
Gift of the Tye family, direct descendants of Tye Kee Yoon 戴喜云, Vice Consul of China in Penang and Lew Yuk Lin 刘玉麟， Minister of the Republic of China to London.
This bench is elegantly decorated with floral as well as geometric motifs on the back, armrests, and apron. Such benches were often acquired or commissioned in pairs for Straits Chinese households, where they were placed facing each other on opposite sides of a room or hall. Such settees were also called pak ee by Peranakan Chinese in Singapore and Malacca, perhaps a corruption of the Hokkien term for ‘wall chair’ which is piak ee. Blackwood furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl decoration was popular among the Chinese diasporic communities in Southeast Asia.
