A set of 9+1 19th century painted wooden decors for the East India Companys building in Singapore
Painted wood with openwork decoration, approx. 119x55 cm and 93x54 cm
Cracks. Damages. Wear. Later painting.
Provenance
The building was a hotel during the 1970s/80s and was demolished in 1988.
Details and documentation were saved by a culture worker who bought this when the house was demolished.
Her idea was to build a Chinese tea room in her hometown in Bavaria. This never came off, but everything was sold on to a collector in Sweden.
More information
Singapore, now with a population of nearly 6 million and one of the most densely populated city-states in the world, was created as a trading post by the East India Company. It was Sir Stamford Raffles' idea.
He decided that the company needed a secure position at the head of the Straits of Malacca where the Dutch were acting aggressively [perhaps provoked...] now in possession of Malacca itself.
Raffles chose Sinhapura, a small island at the tip of the Malay Peninsula, and in 1819 made an agreement with the Sultan of Johore and raised the British flag. Malays and Chinese arrived immediately and built up a population of 5,000 before the London company even knew about it.
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