Folding stool : R van Gelder, Dutch internee

Hand made folding stool manufactured from teak, steel and aluminium. The underside of the seat panel has most of its original red painted finish, but the top surface is heavily worn, and much of the paint has disappeared. The name 'R.van.GELDER.' and a decorative image of a flower were originally chipped out of the painted surface on the top to expose the wood below, but losses to the surrounding paint have made them less evident. A small vignette of an Indonesian pastoral scene showing volcanoes, palm trees, a hut and rice fields, has been burnt into a shallow recessed section at the front of the seat top. The folding legs of the stool lay flat against the seat when not in use, and may be locked in the closed position by a rotating aluminium tab. When erected, the legs form an 'X' shape, and are retained in position by a steel rod which fits into slots on the underside of the seat. Only one of these slots is functional, the other having snapped off. The seat is screwed to the legs from both above and below, for strength, and the pivoting parts of the leg section are made from steel rods with galvanised metal plates reinforcing the ends.

Folding stool made by Max van Gelder for his mother while they were interned in camps on the Netherlands East Indies island of Java. The seat of the stool was made using the red painted teak panel from a door. A hacksaw blade was used to cut the parts of the stool, which were then shaped and smoothed with pieces of broken glass. The illustration of an Indonesian pastoral scene was burnt into the timber using a magnifying glass. Max van Gelder, the eldest son of Herman and Rosaline van Gelder, (nee van Mourik) was eleven years old when his family, which also included ten year old brother Hans and seven year old sister Carla, were interned by the Japanese in 1942. Although a civilian, Herman was separated from his family and interned in a prisoner of war camp as a result of his service in the Semarang ‘Stadswacht' (Town Guard) unit. When Max grew tall enough to be conspicuous in a camp of women and children, he too was taken to a separate camp. After liberation from the Japanese, he remained a prisoner in a camp run by Indonesians until finally released in late 1946. All of the van Gelder family survived the war and were eventually reunited.