Singapore Malay-Style Silver Coffee Pot

This silver-alloy coffee pot almost certainly is the product of local Chinese silversmiths working to Malay designs in Singapore around 1920 for a local European clientele. 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 mention 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). It is likely that this item is one such piece, and thus is an interesting example of one of the first types of handicrafts unique to Singapore.

The pot has a wide, flat base, and tapers to a round cover with a hollow, spherical pull. There is a large handle – also hollow, and a spout. The sides are engraved with floral and leafy scrollwork as well as vacant diamond cartouches.

The Malays generally did not drink tea, unlike the Chinese and the Siamese.  Water, traditionally was their main beverage, served at room temperature or cooled slightly with the aid of a cooling vessel. But coffee became more fashionable among well-to-do Malays towards the end of the 19^th century. Its consumption was a practice learned from the Middle East, either from visiting Arabs, or from going themselves on the Haj. Coffee was grown in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula by the end of the 19^th century. Coffee as a beverage was made not only from the coffee berries but from the leaves of the coffee bush. The berries often were sent for export and the Malays contented themselves with roasting the leaves. Emissaries on behalf of a prospective groom who called on the parents of a would-be bride to see if the girl might be available were welcomed with betel, and by the end of the 19th century, coffee. However, it was enamelled copper coffeepots that were used. There is no record of the Malays using silver coffee pots, even among aristocratic Malays.

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 vessel is sculptural and in fine condition.

This actual item is illustrated in Backman (2024, p. 31).