A Dutch colonial silver-mounted ebony and kayu pelet miniature bureau cabinet

A comparable miniature cabinet in the Rijksmuseum is illustrated in Jan Veenendaal, 'Furniture in Batavia' in Domestic Interiors at the Cape and in Batavia, 1602-1795, Zwolle, 2002, p. 37, fig. 24.

Many miniature cabinets were made in Batavia. Amongst others, there is a group of small, closely related writing-desks of high quality, made of the most expensive of wood available on Java: kayu pelet, a yellow wood with a wild pattern of black lines resembling clouds. All these small items of furniture are probably the work of a single Chinese workshop in Batavia as Chinese workmanship can be recognised as the Chinese allowed the wooden pin to pass through the wood so that it was visible on the outside.