This photograph shows a seated nyonya with a baby on her lap. A nyonya and baba stand at her side. The photograph was probably taken by Mui Kong Studio, Geylang Road, Singapore. Studios were already established across the Strait Settlements and the Dutch East Indies by the 1840s and became increasingly prevalent in the 1850s. During the 1920s, Chinese-owned studios dominated the studio photography trade in Southeast Asia. Ranging from formal studio portraits to albums of snapshots of everyday life and stately ancestral portraits, this large group of photographs reveals the many forms of photography available and gives insight into the various aspects of the lives of Peranakans.
