Early rattan artefacts from Asia exist in the form of highly refined serving bowls and storage boxes in China, shields used in martial arts in Korea and exquisitely woven Inro in Japan. In Europe the earliest importers of rattan were the Dutch and the English who established supply outposts across South East Asia catering to a growing European market for spices, silk, cotton, porcelain and printed textiles. At this time there was little understanding of rattan’s design potential, it was simply incorporated in furniture as an incidental detail, in the form of cane seating. It was only in the mid 19th century that rattan furniture gained importance in its own right, initially in America, England and France.

More recently it is probably rattan’s associations with heat, relaxation and languid summer days for which it is best known, making it a favourite furnishing material in some of the most glamorous playgrounds of the last 50 years, whose occupants’ lives were so evocatively captured by the likes of Slim Aarons and Horst P Horst.

For me, no single factor can explain rattan’s enduring appeal. Its unique ability to lighten the atmosphere of the grandest architecture, its textural fluidity, its understated glamour and the loveliness with which it ages, all contribute to the beauty of furnishings made from this wondrous plant.