This hardwood is taken from the dense, central core of the tree trunk. Amboyna is a burr or burl wood, and is recognisable due to its unique grain patterns, which means no two pieces are alike. It displays the imperfections of having been a living material because the random patterns are the result of stress during growth. These scars or burls resemble bird’s eye patterns that are expressive, seeming to swirl, and have historically made this wood desirable among furniture and box makers as a luxury veneer. Although it can be confused with burr or burl walnut, the colour shade of amboyna wood ranges between light yellow, through golden brown to almost red Mahogany.

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The name amboyna gives a clue of its geographical origin, Southeast Asia in general but Ambon (formerly Amboina), the island in the Moluccas, more specifically. It is unlikely to be the only source of this wood, but the island has become the most common Moluccan name for this type, originating from the Pterocarpus or padauk tree. Amboina, the island, was famed from the sixteenth century onwards due to its production of cloves, the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae that were a highly prized spice in Europe. Although a small island, Amboina held strategic and commercial appeal to nations intent on colonialism and benefiting from extractive economies. A historical victim of international rivalry in Southeast Asia, the island was occupied first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch and, at one point, even the British, albeit briefly.

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Expert Adam Bowett notes that the earliest known reference ‘in an English context occurs in the custom returns for 1730 and 1731’ when it was imported by the East India Company.[1] Bowett also notes that this exotic wood was imported in greater quantities once the British establish a presence in the region in the first half of the nineteenth century. The trade route for this wood at that time was likely via the Cape of Good Hope. The topographical draughtsman, James Wathen (1751?-1828) kept a journal of his journey to Madras and China returning by the Cape. Wathen noted that whilst trade in the region was in decline, ‘it still exports tin in large quantities, gold and gold dust, canes, and rattans, and great quantities of fine woods for the cabinet-makers and turners’.[2]  These fine woods, counting amboyna among them, will have required ‘a veritable army of people’ as Jennifer L. Anderson has identified in relation to another hardwood, Mahogany. This army comprised of enslaved labour, ‘itinerant woodcutters, colonists, and planters’, ‘ship captains, sailors, and stevedores, as well as merchants, cabinetmakers and laborers’.[3] Invisible actors in the manufacture of luxury furniture.

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[1] Adam Bowett, ‘Amboyna’, Woods in British Furniture-Making 1400-1900 (Oblong Creative Ltd/Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, 2012), p. 9.

[2] James Wathen, Journal of a Voyage in 1811 and 1812 to Madras and China Returning by the Cape of Good Hope and St Helena in the H. C. S. The Hope, Capt. James Pendergrass (J. Nichols, Son and Bentley, 1814), p. 165; see also, Nordin Hussin, Trade and Society in the Straits of Melaka: Dutch Melaka and English Penang 1780-1830 (NIAS, 2007).

[3] Jennifer L. Anderson, Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America (Harvard University Press, 2012), p. 12.