This is a pair of portraits of a man and woman dressed in white. They are likely husband and wife, based on their similar outfits and the fact that they are facing inward towards each other. The depiction of the pair in white suggests that these portraits would have likely been used for ancestral veneration, with white being a mourning colour. These portraits are signed “Cedric Wirth F.A.A” suggesting that they were the work of a small group of itinerant European artists that would visit Southeast Asia to paint members of wealthy Dutch colonial and Chinese households. For Chinese Peranakans, ancestral portraits do not just seek to commemorate a death but serves the function of extending the presence of the deceased beyond death.
