This teak armchair with a rattan back and base is a local copy of European furniture featuring Victorian hybrid revival designs. Floral and scrolled motifs decorate the backrest and curved legs of the chair, with details picked out in gold leaf. The English originals did not have any gold leaf, but given the Peranakan’s predilection for red-and-gold, local manufacturers judged that the addition would make the furniture more appealing to the Peranakan market. The customisation of European-style furniture to suit Peranakan taste was to develop later into a full-blown hybrid style combining Chinese and European forms and decorations that was uniquely Peranakan.
