A Dutch-colonial Indonesian sapan and tamarind wood miniature tambour desk with brass mounts
H. 67.5 x W. 63 x D. 39 cm
The tambour desk or bureau à cilindre came into fashion in the Netherlands and former Dutch East Indies in the second half of the 18th century. The taste for French designs came to prevail, replacing the earlier English Georgian models of desks with plain sloping fronts. Miniature furniture, exact copies after full-size examples such as the tambour desk in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, were very popular among the Indo-Dutch ladies in the Dutch East Indies in the 18th century.
Source:
Titus Eliëns, Domestic interiors at the Cape and Batavia 1602-1795, Zwolle, 2002, pp. 106-107
Part of the Indonesian Archipelago collection.
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