This studio photograph shows a couple before an entrance to a house. A jiho and valence is visible in the background. It is stamped with the studio ‘Keechun Studio Penang.’ There are two other similar photographs in this acquisition.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.
