Title
Untitled
Year/Period
Early 20th century
Region
Java
Dimension
Frame size: 34 x 30.4 x 2.3 cm,
Image size: 19.6 x 13.5 cm,
Image size: 25.8 x 22.2 cm (Mount size)
Image size: 19.6 x 13.5 cm,
Image size: 25.8 x 22.2 cm (Mount size)
Accession No.
2013-00981
Collection of
Credit Line
Gift of Mr and Mrs Lee Kip Lee
This is a framed studio photograph of a nyonya dressed in an elegant lace kebaya matched with batik belanda (Dutch batik), while the baba is dressed in a smart Western suit. The Peranakan couple stand against a painted landscape of mountains and sea, a Victorian convention around the 1870s. This photo is part of a large group of framed photographs which provides important visual documentation of the fashion, studio photography and lifestyle of Peranakans of the Straits Settlements and Indonesia in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries. Studio photography possibly reached Singapore and the region in the mid 1800s, and Peranakans were among the earliest clients.
