In Mahendra Doshi’s Wadala showroom, a 43-foot mural takes up an entire wall. In sepia and gold tones, it chooses a variety of chairs, areas and architectural styles to illustrate India’s seating design lineage – setting the tone for its new exhibition. History of India through chairs. “I wanted to show how cultural context and history have shaped the chairs,” explains Vivek Gandhi, who conceptualized the exhibition in Mumbai, which has been curated by his father Anand Gandhi and uncle Chikki Doshi.
43-foot mural taking shape Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
“In the mural, we show how little pre-colonial seating arrangements were sour [cots], Swing [swings]and below khursis for royal meetings [gatherings]. Then, the Portuguese introduced high seating arrangements, ornate bishop’s chairs, etc. cadeira do avo [grandfather chair or armchair],” he adds, “the Dutch burgomaster brought [a 17th-19th century teak chair with a circular cane seat, six legs, and a carved back]And the English with their planter chairs [with a deep seat and sloping back]”
(L-R) Chikki Doshi, Surpiya Gandhi, Vivek Gandhi, and Anand Gandhi. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
50 years collection
This house, with the largest collection of antiquities in the country, objets d’art And collectible, knows its chairs. Started by Mahendra Doshi 52 years ago (and later added to by the family), his collection has over 3,000 chairs – collected from Gujarat, Goa, Rajasthan, Kerala, West Bengal and other places. It also includes pre- and post-independence models such as the streamlined Art Deco chair, the Jeanneret chair and modern incarnations that alternately embrace Indian maximalism and European minimalism. Selecting only 250 was a challenging task.
Mahendra Doshi Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“When I was going through the warehouses, I found a teak chair covered in plastic. It was dad’s chair [Anand Gandhi] Bought it in a property sale in Gujarat 30 years ago. it was covered with ceramic Pearl Work [beadwork]But it was in a bad condition,” recalls Vivek. ”Nobody does this handicraft anymore, and it took us more than three months to find a group in Bhavnagar that works with beads that are barely a millimeter in size. a 78 year old man B. A [honorific for an elderly Gujarati woman] Was able to perform the most complex task of re-installing a chair. The restoration took about eight months.”
with court chair Pearl Work from Kathiawar Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
seats of power and origin
The chairs are presented chronologically: Indigenous Pre-Colonial, Portuguese Colonial, Dutch Colonial, English Colonial, French Colonial, Indo-Saracenic, Arts and Crafts Movement, Art Deco, Mid-Century Modern and Contemporary. Sourced from estate sales, private parties and dealers, they present the story of India at the intersection of craft and history.
History of India through chairs
| Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
“While low stools were just seats in pre-colonial times, high chairs became more popular with the arrival of the Portuguese and Dutch,” says Chick, adding that “a high chair creates power”. Materials also speak to provenance: both through local use and through trade routes. For example, Goan and Dutch chairs were made from rosewood, which was used in abundance in the East (with the Dutch ports at Pulicat in Tamil Nadu and Masulipatnam in Andhra Pradesh) and the West (with Goa as a Portuguese colony). However, teak wood has been used in Gujarat since the colonial period. Late 18th century chairs include: bajot (used by priests during rituals), a hand-painted Dolly (palanquin), and a chair With brass-clad backrest and horse details.
Bajot used by priests. Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
a despicable chair
| Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
Gujarati Dolly Hand painted with vegetable dyes. Photo Credit: Hashim Badani
From Imperial to Rococo
The curation also shows how the scope for ornamentation provided Indian craftsmen the opportunity to add their own stamp to the designs during the colonial period. An Indo-Portuguese bishop’s chair from the late 18th century bears the symbol of Ashoka at the top. “On closer inspection, we found that only the emblem is in teak; the carved chair is made of Sheesham wood. Our guess is that the emblem was added later when the chair was renovated by an Indian craftsman for a court or government office after independence,” says Anand.
Indo-Portuguese bishop’s chair with Ashoka symbol | Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
A rosewood chair made for Raj Saheb Mansinghji II Ranmalsinghji, Raja of Dhrangadhra (circa 1893), with the carpenter’s name engraved on the back, a rare stamp of a maker. “This is one of the few chairs with a date written on it [in our collection]. Usually, we arrive at the timeline of chairs by looking at the design timeline,” says Vivek.
Durbar Hall chair from the Raj of Dhrangadhra. Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
Then, there is a French Rococo dining chair with an ocher seat that evokes the Chippendale style (with flowing curves and decorative fretwork), which was a style popular among the elite in Kolkata in the 18th century. A pair of 19th-century Indo-Saracenic chairs with rich raw silk upholstery and a mirror at the back. A rosewood Anglo-Indian throne chair from the same period filigree It has burgundy upholstery and “was probably made for a British officer”, says Vivek. There’s also a red and blue chair by Dutch furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld. With this lounge chair, designed in 1917, Rietveld removed the volume of the traditional chair and emphasized functionality.
French Rococo Dining Chair | Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
Anglo Indian throne chair with crown and filigree Work Photo Credit: Hashim Badani
Red and blue chair by Gerrit Rietveld | Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
However, for Chick, Art Deco chairs hold a special place, as it was a movement that coincided with a young independent India creating its own design syntax. “Deco Movement in Bombay [from the 1930s onwards] It was so big that the architecture was not just on Marine Drive. It was on the streets, theatres, shops and buildings of Dadar, Matunga. And the geometric furniture that came with it was a relief from all the Gothic carved furniture everyone was used to.”
art deco lounge chair | Photo Credit: Vivek Gandhi
To visitors and collectors, organizers urge: Stop, connect with history, culture and context, and pay attention to restoration. Anand’s daughter Surapiya, who is behind the exhibition design, says, “There was luxury in terms of raw materials, but there is something to be said about the craftsmanship. And the restoration was done with painstaking detail [keeping this in mind]”
India’s History through Chairs program is going on from 28 February to 8 March at Mahendra Doshi, Mumbai.
Freelance writer based in Chennai.
published – February 27, 2026 07:27 am IST