This is a large carved altar sideboard with a marble tabletop and a portrait of Mr and Mrs Ong Sam Leong in the centre. Mr Ong is depicted wearing traditional Chinese garb while his wife, seated on the left is painted wearing a green, floral baju panjang fastened with three large diamond brooches (kerosang in Baba Malay) over a sarong with a pair of beaded slippers. A rectangular photograph of their eldest son Ong Boon Tat in between his two wives is affixed at the centre above them. Dragons and phoenixes run along the sides of the altar, and a pair of phoenixes is carved in openwork as a crown. This item is donated by the family of prominent Peranakan, Ong Sam Leong (b. 1857, Singapore – d. 7 February 1918, Singapore). It comes from his ancestral home of Bukit Rose, formerly at 259 Bukit Timah Road. Ong was a well-known successful businessman who made is money in the mining of phosphate on Christmas island, which was historically a territory of colonial Singapore.
