Early 20th Century Anglo-Indian 2 Tier Turned Wooden Shelf.

Size: 41 1/2 x 14 x 41 1/2 in.

#5593

After the British East India Company established a settlement in Madras in 1639, British citizens and soldiers began to move there in increasingly greater numbers. The community identified itself with and was accepted by the British until 1791, when Anglo-Indians were excluded from positions of authority in the civil, military and marine services in the East India Company. By this time, the term Anglo-Indian, which had been originally applied to the English population who bore and raised children in India, had shifted to include people of mixed race origins. During the Indian rebellion of 1857, Anglo-Indians sided with the British and consequently received favored treatment from the British government in preference to other Indians, serving in large numbers in the strategic services of the railways, the postal and telegraph services, and customs. In 1919, the Anglo-Indian community was given one reserved seat in the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi. Although the term is now considered archaic, with British Asian or British Indian the preferred nomenclature, its place in the Indian diaspora is a critical locus around which much of modern Indian culture within the subcontinent and in worldwide communities revolves. In the case of this item, the term specifically refers to a style of craftsmanship common among the community, combining techniques from Indian and English woodworking in the building of furniture, particularly the rounded knobs and the brackets that connect the shelves to the columns.