A Dutch colonial church chair.
Second half of the 17th century, Amboina (Moluccas).
A very interesting chair about which much has been written in studies of colonial furniture. This chair is attributed to the School of the Moluccas by V.I. van de Wall and was probably made from kaliatoer wood or bloodwood (Eucalyptus), a tropical hardwood species. The same model made from ebony wood, which is more common in books and collections, is one of the first models to appear in colonial ebony furniture.
The chair is very richly equipped with twisted legs and bars for the legs and backrest, also called screw-shaped turning. The edges of the seat, as with many Moluccan chairs, are straight and simple.
The abundant twisted parts may indicate greater Portuguese-Spanish influence than elsewhere in the archipelago, although it is much less complicated than in Portuguese furniture.
Due to its opulent decoration with screw-shaped turning, the Moluccan furniture undeniably made a richer impression than the seating furniture in the mother country around the middle of the 17th century. Since Moluccan furniture was usually low and had no armrests, it was the women’s chair par excellence, and was also significantly lighter than other chairs, because there was so little solid woodwork due to the extensive turning work. However, the model we offer is described as a ‘man’s chair’ due to its large size. The name Moluccan has its origins with Van de Wall. During his stay in the Moluccas he saw a lot of furniture without carving and with many twisted elements.
The bottom features a collection number, written in white, in the same way as can be seen in the photo of the chair from Jan Veenendaal’s book, ‘Furniture from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India’, p. 34.
There is an image in the book of V.I. van de Wall, ‘Het Hollandsche Koloniale Barokmeubel‘, fig. 2, p. 34, of the interior of the Dutch East India Company Room in the Museum in Batavia, showing two similar church chairs, one in the foreground and one in the corner behind the cupboard door.
For similar models of chairs but made of ebony, see:
Veenendaal, Jan ‘Furniture from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India’, p. 34
J. Terwen-de Loos ‘Het Nederlands Koloniale Meubel’, p. 40
Dr. V.I. van de Wall ‘Het Hollandsche Koloniale Barokmeubel’, p. 86.
M. Eliëns, Titus ‘Wonen op de Kaap en in Batavia‘, p. 72.
Inv. No: A00015
