Enquiry about object: 5309
Straits Chinese Spoon & Chopstick Embroidered Rests
Straits Chinese People, Straits Settlements, Malaysia/Singapore early 20th century
length of chopstick rests: 35cm, width of spoon rests: 14.5cm
Provenance
collected by Alwyn Sidney Haynes (1878-1963), and thence by descent. Haynes was a colonial administrator in Malaya and the Straits Settlements between 1901 and 1934. He held many posts including Acting British Resident, Pahang (1924); British Resident, Perak (1925); British Advisor, Kedah (1925); British Advisor, Kelantan (1930); and Acting Colonial Administrator, Straits Settlements (1933), after which he retired and returned to England, and lived near Stratford-upon-Avon, and then in Leamington Spa. Haynes loaned some of the items he collected in Malaya to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford in 1939. He was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1950.
The pair of embroidered spoon rests and pair of chopstick rests are of stiff card covered with red velvet which has been very finely embroidered with satin stitch in silk of various colours with pairs of phoenixes and peonies.
They would have been used at the festivities associated with a Straits Chinese (Nonya–Baba) wedding in one of the Straits Settlements of Singapore, Malacca or Penang.
They are in excellent condition and were collected by an English colonial administrator in the early 20th century.
(The spoon rests and chopstick rests are not shown to scale relative to each other.)
References
Ho, W.M., Straits Chinese Beadwork & Embroidery: A Collector’s Guide, Times Books International, 1987.
