ISBN: 9789971917388
Asian Civilisations Museum
Paperback: 208 pages |
Gilding the Phoenix - The
Straits Chinese and Their Jewellery
During the hundred years between 1850 and 1950, Southeast Asia was
the site of the birth, growth and decline of a unique community
– that of the Straits Chinese or Peranakans. During that time,
this community found themselves at the nexus of the Chinese, Malay,
European and Indian worlds, with Chinese migrants adapting to the
cosmopolitan environment in which they found themselves. The story
of the Peranakans and their art is told against an examination of
their most valuable possessions – the incredible jewels which
they commissioned for everyday and ceremonial use. This is the first
comprehensive study of this subject, this book is the permanent
record of an exhibition of Straits Chinese jewels held between April
and August 1993. Containing more than 300 masterpieces of the jewelers
art displayed in their context of costumes, furniture and archival
material, it reveals the splendour of a lost lifestyle and rediscovers
a lost chapter of this region’s design history. |
