Furniture: A Collector?s Guide

The Straits Babas were a conservative people: for their weddings, they commissioned a whole range of furniture in auspicious red-and-gold namwood, while for day-to-day activities they favoured items in carved blackwood with mother-of-pearl or marble inlays. But they were also impressed by the tables, cupboards and writing desks brought to the Straits Settlements by the British colonizers and immediately set about commissioning similar furniture in teakwood from the highly-accomplished local cabinet-market.