This type of chair, termed Kuststoel or coast chair by Van de Wall in Hef Hollandsche Koloniale barokmeuble, Antwerp, 1939, with a double row of turned balusters in the back, derived originally from Italian renaissance models as adapted in the Netherlands in the first half of the 17th Century. Such furniture was produced in the Dutch settlements in South India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The style of carving of the flowerheads on the seat-rail of this chair is characteristic of pieces from South India (see: J. Veenendaal, Furniture from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India during the Dutch Period, Delft, 1985, p. 59, fig. 10).

The carving of the cresting combines Hindu and Christian imagery in a manner typical of the Hindus of the coast of South India converted to Roman Catholicism by the Portugese in the 16th and 17th Century. The bird may be indentified with the indentified with the Garuda and the mermaids with Vishnu. The crestings of thrones carved on Indian temples often combine animals which symbolise air and water (see: J. Veenendaal, op.cit., p. 36, pl. 20 for a chair with similarly carved cresting