Steering chair
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1870 - 1910
Materials
Teak
Measurements
122 x 53 x 162 cm
Place of origin
Myanmar (Burma)
Collection
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
NT 107700
Summary
A carved teak steering chair, Myanmar (Burma), late 19th/early 20th century. Deep and low, intricately carved with trailing foliage, and with winged cherubs, mythical crocodiles, lions and, at its head, a peacock. Steering chairs were used by helmsmen and positioned on the stern of Burmese rice boats, or ‘laung-zat’, which were themselves highly carved. There is a photograph of one of these chairs in use on the Irrawaddy in the 1880s in the British Library (BL Photo 88/1).
Full description
During a recent review of the Burmese objects in the ‘Eastern Museum’ at Kedleston, this chair was identified as potentially unique in British collections. The collection of the National Museum of Myanmar (Burma) does not include one. It is an exceptional example of the art of wood-carving, for which the Burmese were famous. Like other objects in the collection (many of which were specifically made for European buyers), it demonstrates the influence of colonial activity on local culture – some of the chair’s carved motifs are European in derivation – but it is otherwise quintessentially Burmese. The peacock (or ‘daung’), for instance, was strongly associated with the Konbaung monarchy and was stamped on the highest denominator coins issued by Burma’s last dynasty. The ‘Eastern Collection’ was the name given to the vast collection of objects from China, Southern and Western Asia amassed by George Nathanial Curzon, 1st Viscount Scarsdale (1859-1925) whilst serving as Viceroy of India from 1899-1905, when the collection was arranged at Kedleston in 1925. Myanmar (Burma) fell to British rule in 1886. British colonisation of Myanmar brought sweeping changes to traditional Burmese social, economic, cultural and administrative norms, and was resisted. It was not until 4 January 1948 that Myanmar became an independent republic. In Myanmar in 1901, Curzon evicted the British military from the Mandalay royal palace and had it restored, preserving the palace but, in so doing, erasing traces of the previous Burmese rulers, the Konbaug dynasty. The ‘Eastern Collection’ is currently undergoing re-interpretation and research. (Megan Wheeler, August 2020)
Provenance
Purchased in 1986 by the National Heritage Memorial Fund from Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (1924-2000). Gifted to the National Trust in 1987 by the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
References
Tilly, Harry L. (1903), Wood-Carving of Burma, with photographs by P. Klier (Rangoon, 1903)