Large, Fine, Silver-Alloy Malay-Style Lotus-Form Stand & Cover

This massive, fine and impressive silver-alloy stand and cover almost certainly is the product of local Chinese silversmiths working to Malay designs in Singapore around 1920 for a local European clientele. It comprises a large pedestal tray on a wide, domed, 12-sided foot with a baluster-form stem; a wide tray with an edge comprising a complex border of overlapping lotus petals with spiky edging; and a large domed cover that tapers in at the bottom, and with a high, bud-like finial. Each component is carefully engraved and chased with scrolling leaf and flower motifs. The centre of the tray has a six-petalled roundel engraved with flower motifs. The domed cover is decorated in relief with petal-shaped cartouches alternately engraved, over several bands of engraved decoration.

Occasionally, such pedestal trays and covers are referred to as ‘Malay cake stands’ but there is no evidence that pedestal stands with covers, of any form or material, existed in the 19th century in Malay communities, and that they were used for cakes. Certainly pedestal trays did exist, but they tended to be used to hold betel sets or to display gifts at weddings. They did not have covers.

In the past, such silver has been ascribed either to Riau or Sumatra but such large pieces of finely hammered silver alloy sheet only started to appear in collections from the 1920s-30s onwards, some decades after it was widely reported that Malay silversmiths had largely ceased working, the consequence of changing tastes, colonisation, and the decline of the power and thus wealth of the Malay sultans in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.

A local report at the time mentions workshops in Singapore where local silversmiths were producing large items of light-weight silver in a Malay style to satisfy local European demand (Backman, 2024, p, 33). The author of that same report mentions seeing Chinese silversmiths operating in Singapore in a workshop where he saw ‘a silver stand with a domed, lotus petal cover’. Almost certainly the author was referring to a silver stand such as the example here. As such, this stand is a fine example of one of the first types of handicrafts unique to Singapore.

That such items were intended for the European market is attested to by the fact that today, such items are found in Europe and not in the Malay world. Those that are now in Malaysia or Singapore today usually were acquired in Europe recently and brought back to the region by local collectors. Any evidence that such items date into the 19th century is heresay and unsupported by documentary evidence.

As mentioned, the vessel is an intriguing part of Singapore’s material culture story, though not necessarily a part of the story of Malay silversmithing.

The stand and cover is sculptural and in fine condition. There are light dents, and so on. But overall, it is in fine condition. The tray attaches to the stem and foot via a bayonette fitting.

This actual item is illustrated in Backman (2024, p. 33).