Jasvinder Kaur
BEFORE the advent of European powers, people in the subcontinent were not using any western-style elevated furniture. Early travellers to India have chronicled accounts of people sitting on the floor on durries or peedhis. When the Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century, they did not find any western-style furniture or trained carpenters to make it.
Many writers have described Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s durbar wherein white sheets were spread on the floor. Emily Eden (1838), sister of Lord Auckland, mentions this in her letters to her sister. WG Archer in ‘Paintings of the Sikhs’ writes that Ranjit Singh started using chairs in his durbar much later. Their design was based on early 19th century English chairs with a new kind of looped arm.