This Mumbai exhibit captures 200 years of design in 250 chairs

“It’s an illness! But I hope it continues to persist,” says Chiki Doshi about his obsession with collecting. It’s a hereditary compulsion he and cousin Anand Gandhi picked up from their late uncle Mahendra Doshi, who founded the eponymous and iconic antique house in 1974 in Mumbai. “He was a voracious collector and a living encyclopaedia when it came to beautifully made pieces,” Chiki recalls. “He knew so much despite travelling so little—he didn’t even have a passport. But we learnt everything from him.”

In the 1990s, when Chiki was still learning the ropes, he would trail his mentor through Mumbai’s bazaars—from Chor Bazaar to Jogeshwari—watching him ask questions, inspect joinery, assess wood, spot provenance in a detail most people would miss. “I would scour markets and meet dealers with him, awestruck by his incredible knowledge—and the things he collected with it.”

By 2020, their seafront space at Malabar Hill was overflowing with furniture. “We needed more storage and a workshop,” he recalls as we walk into his warehouse in Wadala, where the ongoing show, A History of India Through Chairs, is being exhibited. “This idea has been lingering in my mind for years, and it seemed like a simple one. Even before formal furniture came into our country with colonial rule, every corner of India had its own cuisine, character, clothes…even furniture. In this case, it’s chairs.”

He highlights Kashmir’s fine inlay in walnut wood, Gujarat’s carved ornate furniture, the Chettinad pillars from Tamil Nadu, the Bhatkal chests from the backwaters of Karnataka. “The British, Portuguese, and Dutch brought with them more formal ways of making. But while the designs were theirs, it was the Indian artisans’ skill and the superior quality of wood that made each piece so remarkable and last till today,” Chiki explains.

A museum of chairs

Meticulous restoration and familial passion lies at the heart of the ongoing exhibition, which is designed by Supriya Gandhi of The Workshop Architects, with art direction by Vivek Gandhi (they are the children of Anand Gandhi). “Curated to showcase ‘every era across every area of India’, you’ll find the country’s history preserved and echoing through these pieces here,” Chiki points out. 

At the entrance, a towering three-level installation with three types of chairs visually traces the journey of restoration, showing the viewer what condition each chair came in. “Often, like for all furniture, when we receive a chair, it’s dilapidated or misused over a period of years. We open it; learn the joinery, which tells us the story of its age and where it must have come from; and fix it exactly the way the carpenter probably built it in those days. The final finished product gives the chair its due,” adds Chiki.

The 250 chairs—amassed by Mahendra Doshi in his lifetime and expanded by Chiki and Anand after him—have been organised by design period, beginning with chairs that existed long before colonial rule. “We’ve placed these thematically for the viewer so they can see how styles evolved through each era in India and how each era influenced the next.”

A finely carved Mughal-era rosewood chair from Lucknow with bone inlay sits at the entrance. “It’s so intricate and rare, I wonder how the craftsman didn’t go blind working on it,” Chiki muses, adding, “It took our boys a very long time to restore.” Beside it unfolds a striking arrangement of heavily carved Indo-Portuguese rosewood furniture. A grand palanquin—painted with Christian figures in polychrome vegetable dyes—rests atop a monumental 15-foot-long rosewood dining table, its sheer scale a reminder of the forests that once produced timber of this size. Above it, a row of eight intricately carved dining chairs crowns the wall, framing the tableau like a sculptural proscenium.

As one moves deeper into the warehouse, Portuguese and Dutch influences emerge, followed by more formal British colonial chairs that arrived along India’s western shores in ships, bringing with them new codes of posture, hierarchy, and etiquette. Ornate Rococo flourishes and Indo-Saracenic hybrids mark the transitional decades. “Think of the style of furniture you’d find inside Bombay’s iconic government buildings built at the time, like the Victoria Terminus,” Chiki explains.

Upstairs, the mood loosens into post-Independence Art Deco and mid-century modern forms that once circulated through India’s newly cosmopolitan homes. Stopping in front of a curiously built triangular sofa set, Chiki points to the cabinets below each armrest: “This is so thoughtfully designed, perhaps to place books within to easily pull out,” he proffers. The outer face of the cabinet is fitted with stainless-steel sheets, “showcasing the futuristic vision of Deco”.

On the floor above sits a particularly striking Art Deco sofa set with dramatically rounded arms in rich burl. Chiki recalls acquiring it in the 1980s in a completely dilapidated state, only realising the extraordinary grain of the wood when it was stripped and restored nearly a year ago. Reupholstered with delicate botanical prints, the set displays bold geometry, “which also showcases how the Deco movement was so prominent and eventually evolved into mid-century modern design.”

Further in is a rarer find—the Red and Blue chair by Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld. “This was just a futuristic chair we found, loved and bought. Later, when we began to do our homework on it, we discovered the history behind it,” Chiki says. The piece represents one of the earliest three-dimensional explorations of the De Stijl movement, a Dutch modernist philosophy that reduced design to pure geometry and primary colours. Two of Doshi’s favourite chairs sit beside it—Danish furniture designer Jørgen Høvelskov’s Harp chair from the 1960s, and his homage to Pierre Jeanneret’s Chandigarh office chair rendered in solid brass. “It’s almost 50 kilos! It’s such an iconic design—this was my way of giving it a simple yet grand tribute.”

Cues from the collector

Another striking moment in the exhibit comes in the form of a deconstructed chair mounted on the wall, its individual components carefully laid out like a diagram. The display reveals the anatomy of the object—arms, splats, legs, and stretchers—offering a rare glimpse into the craftsmanship and joinery that hold these historic pieces together.

For those hoping to train their eye for antiques, Chiki offers simple advice. Visit bazaars, he says. Ask questions. “Never feel intimidated. A seasoned dealer will always be happy to show you and explain things.” And if something truly speaks to you, don’t hesitate. “In my early days, if I saw something I loved, I would find a way to buy it—even working out payment plans with dealers. An antique is usually a one-off; you may never come across another piece like it again.” Most importantly, he insists, read. “Read as many books on the subject as you can. It’s far better than endlessly searching the internet,” he laughs. “Books are my perfect companions—I never go to bed without one.”

A History of India Through Chairs is being showcased at Mahendra Doshi, Western India Steel Trading Warehousing Co, Wadala East, Mumbai. Open all days from 11 am to 7 pm till March 8