The selection of porcelains on display forms part of a generous gift from Mrs. Alice Tan, who began assembling the collection in the 1980s from sources in Singapore and Malaysia—a period that paralleled growing public interest in Peranakan heritage.
The donation focuses on coloured-ground porcelains, representative of those used in affluent Peranakan Chinese households across Southeast Asia during the 19th and early 20th centuries. These ceramics were primarily vessels for food and drink, and for religious offerings.
This collection complements the broader holdings of Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics at the NUS Museum and NUS Baba House. It enhances the chronological display of Chinese ceramics from the Lee Kong Chian Collection, the archaeological sherds from Singapore and the region, and the domestic wares at Baba House, many of which were sourced from Peranakan families.
As Guest-of-Honour Adjunct Associate Professor Kwa Chong Guan (NUS Dept of History) reflected in his opening address at the book launch of Clay & Colour: Ceramics from the Alice & Peter Tan Collection, this generous donation “allows a younger generation of Singaporeans to re-examine and rethink the significance of these old plates and bowls from Shanghai which our grandparents prized and handed down to us as heirlooms.” As he reminded the audience: “We are commemorating a patrimony that stretches from the 19th-century Qing kilns of Jingdezhen to the kitchens and altars of Southeast Asia, and now to the galleries of a university museum. What we are seeing are not just beautiful objects. These objects are about the stories we tell about ourselves, and the communities we build in the process of storytelling.”
Click here to view the full speech.
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