Featured Circular Peranakan Silver Bolster Plates

My last purchase for 2024!! Or at least, the last addition to my collection for the year...



Like the other pair I bought, my plan is to polish them a bit, and then frame them so I can hang them on the wall. That way people can see them without damaging them.

 

Gorgeous !!!

 

What is a bolster plate? I googled and it showed industrial machine parts.

 

A bolster is a long, padded pillow, usually cylindrical or oblong in shape...



The bolster plates are sewn onto the ends for decoration. They're unique, as far as I know, to the Peranakan Chinese culture of Southeast Asia, which is where my family is from. They're made of silver, and I've never seen anybody but the Peranakan Chinese make them, or use them. As far as I'm aware, they've never been made of anything else - always sheet silver. Sometimes you can find hallmarked ones, but most were never stamped - something so small and thin, the silversmith likely didn't see the point in marking it.

They also come as rectangles, like these. I bought these a few months ago...

 

No one would recognize those here, but I bet polished up they'd look great.

 

Gorgeous plates, Shangas, great find.

Gold and silver pillow and bolster plates are originally Malay, and probably invented in the Malay homeland of Sumatra. They are used in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, especially for wedding beds and the aristocratic home.

The foremothers of Peranakan families were local women and girls. Since women generally ruled the home, they introduced their own household goods and home decor. Malay foremothers introduced the Malay use of bolster plates, which were then made according to the Peranakan esthetic.
Yours are definitely Peranakan, so you chose well. But Malay plates are not to be sneezed at either.

Below are Malay bolster plates, from Michael Backman's excellent book "Malay Silver and Gold" (apologies for the blurry pic):

 

Michael Backman is an excellent resource for stuff like this. His website is fascinating to read.

 

Here they are next to my rectangular ones...

 

There was another pair online for obscene amounts of money...I ain't that desperate!! But these were just-about-affordable, so I decided to splurge for Christmas

Didn't realise they were originally just Malay, but that makes sense.

I also didn't know that they were made of gold? I have SEEN gold-coloured ones, but I always assumed they were just gold-plated on silver. I don't think I've ever seen any which were just - solid-gold on their own.

Thanks. The seller had 2-3 pairs of these for sale, but this pair was the heaviest, and looked more Chinese than Malay. The inclusion of the five Chinese Foo-dogs kinda cemented it for me - very Peranakan-like.

 

Interesting. Thanks. I really had no idea what these are..

 

Good information. Thanks AJ

 

Malay plates sometimes are, especially the ones for the royal courts. I don't know about Peranakan plates, but wealthy merchants may have had gold ones.

Absolutely.

 

I shall have to pay closer attention - I've never seen any solid gold ones, not even in museums!

 

Definitely worth keep an eye out for, especially here or in Australia. Odds are a seller might not know what they have! Might not even realize they're precious metal.

 

That's how I got my first pair! Some older couple was selling them at an antiques fair I went to. They didn't really know what it was, they just had all kinds of Asian antiques for sale. I asked them a bit, and then made a deal and bought them (the plates, I mean. Buying humans tends to be frowned upon...) and I was really excited.

 

Good for you. The humans I take it were NFS?

 

How interesting, @Shangas ! Bolster plates... learned something today.

 

For those who are struggling to understand how these things work - here's a demonstrative photograph from the aforementioned Michael Backman:

 

All mounted!!...

 

I knew about bolster pillows but didn't know that they could have fancy ends. Never too old to learn something new!