Accoutrements in silver...

Silver and to a lesser extent, gold; had been a precious metal (logam mulia) of choice when it came to the construction of the ampilan and ceremonial vessels for the court and princely dalems in Central Java.

The usual examples are the paidon or small spittoon, tempolong/kecohan or large spittoon, sirih set or pakinangan and the offering trays and bowls (bokor). For most people and the lesser nobility, these vessels would be in brass and for the senior princes and the ruler, they would be in silver and gold.

Here are a few samples of uncommon vessels in silver from noble houses...

Left to right:

A encased tea set, a sirih finger bowl and a large ceremonial bokor (offering bowl)

A very rare and important silver ceremonial tea set from a noble house in Surakarta, 19th century.

Personally, I have never encountered a similar set that is from a Javanese princely house and from the make and style, this is made in Java with Chinese, European and local influences.

Drawing a comparision to the palanquins at the Surakarta court where the construction and style is essentially Javanese but much of the decoration and painting depicts Chinese styled elements.

This possibly unique tea set was an accoutrement to the other upacara utensils, notably the sirih sets in the late 18th - early 19th century princely dalem, but not for regular use or as tea service but largely reserved in a more rigid ceremonial settting.

Ritual Use of the Krobongan

A recent visit back to the ancient court city of Surakarta last week for a “polokromo” or wedding celebration gave me impetus to revisit this interesting topic of the ritual usage of the krobongan.

In the very interesting and informative narration from the perspective of Brent and Martha Ashabranner in their article: LORO BLONYO: Traditional Sculpture of Central Java, (Arts of Asia, May – June 1980) they state on page 113; that: “Sri, accompanied by her consort, simply sat near the krobongan, her shrine, never to be moved, except on a single occasion. That occasion was a wedding: at one point during the long ceremony of an aristocratic wedding the statues of Sri and Sadono were removed and the couple being married took their place, in the exact posture of the loro blonyo, in front of the krobongan.”

This statement was echoed again by Jesssup, in the catalogue description and notes on the loro blonyo in the Court Arts of Indonesia exhibition organised by the Asia Society Galleries, NY., in the early 1990s.

On page 264, she writes: “Although associated with the marriage bed and described as a bridal pair, the loro blonyo are not present during the marriage ceremony. They are replaced by the bridal couple sitting in front of the kobongan in the same pose as the sculptures, thus emphasizing the importance of fertility symbols during the marriage rites without the actual presence of a Hinduistic or animist symbol.” And she quotes B.and M. Ashabranner 1980:112-19.

Interestingly B. and M. Ashabranner also goes on to state on page 114 (continued on page 116) that: “Tradition still requires the presence of loro blonyo in front of the krobongan in the kratons of Solo and Jogyakarta, but we (sic) know of no instance of their ritual use or of a krobongan in any private residence today.”

This imparts an interesting opinion on the presence, placement and role of the loro blonyo within an aristocratic setting during the occasion of a wedding. However, my own personal experience has shown this to be not entirely accurate as the background of the ritual space of the central bay within the dalem, the “senthong tengah”, which houses the ritual marriage bed or staatsiebed [in Dutch] (as described in an earlier blog post) known as the pasren or krobongan structure within noble dwellings is contained within a relatively large space in the dalem proper which is regarded as the domain of the female by the Javanese and as such activities of the bridal couple around the area of the krobongan did not necessitate the displacement of the loro blonyo, either from tradition, nor for the ease of movement during the wedding ceremonies.

Some research and observations from the photographic archives of the nobility in Surakarta dating to the late 19^th and 20^th centuries shows the presence of the loro blonyo throughout the marriage ceremony which involved the use of the krobongan. This was from the marriages of Mangkunegara VII to the current MN IX and some documentation of the princely dalems of the Kasunanan.

This historical documentation of a royal wedding at the Kasunanan kraton is dated 1970 and depicts the groom as the son of GPH Soeryobroto and the elderly prince in the dark jacket. From the decoration of the krobongan, this is most probably within the dalem ageng of the Sasono Mulyo and clearly demonstrates that the loro blonyo figurines are not removed during the process of a Surakarta aristocratic wedding.

Perhaps, B. and M. Ashabranner had formed their conclusion on the removal of the statutes as their knowledge on the role of the krobongan and possible genesis came from the explanation of a Mr Rudjito of the Sono Budoyo Museum in Jogyakarta.

Unlike in Jogyakarta, where all families across social strata were permitted to own loro blonyo within their dwellings; “in Surakarta, the presence of loro blonyo was restricted to noble families.” (Jessup, 1990)    

Thus I can also speculate here that the dalems of most aristocratic families are of larger proportions than the residences of the general populace and thus there would be more available space in front of the krobongan within the dalem where the bridal pair would sit in state during the wedding ceremony and the statutes would not need to be displaced.

And both Ashabranner & Ashabranner, 1980 and Jessup, 1990; state that the ritual use of the krobongan was restricted to the occasions of weddings and funerals and this is backed up by photographs of the cortege of Pakubuwana X lying in state within the Ndalem Pakubuwanan (around the area of the Ivory Room, Kamar Gading, behind the dalem Prabasuyasa proper) before a plain krobongan that had loro blonyo sited in front. Remarkably the deceased monarch did not lie in state before the krobongan at the dalem Prabusuyasa and recent funerals of deceased princes (KGPH Kusumoyudo) were held before the krobongan at the Sasana Mulya. After which the bodies were transported to the Royal Mausoleum at Imogiri for interment.

Available literature states that the krobongans were never used for sleeping by humans and were some sort of remnant Hinduistic or animist altar used in Kejawen beliefs.

However, personal communication with the consort of the late daughter of Adipati Purwodiningrat on the occasion of his marriage in the early to mid 20^th century; the Kangjeng Pangeran, now in his eighties; revealed that after the main wedding festivities in the preceding day such as the “temu” and “ijab” ceremonies and the “sungkem” which was done sitting in front of the krobongan; at around 1 am or past midnight, the bridal pair would withdraw from the guests and had to sit as a couple inside the krobongan where the curtains or cloths which were draped over it (dikerobongi, diselubungi) were closed for a few seconds, after which a female member of the family would come up to the krobongan with a lighted candle, reopen the curtains and ask: “Are you still there.”

This was repeated three times and this peculiar ceremony was based on an ancient Javanese myth that a bridegroom once changed into a huge caterpillar and murdered his wife.

Thus these were the only few occasions that the krobongan were used in the settings of weddings and funerals.

Traditionally, the back or side of the senthong would contain cupboards for heirlooms and valuables, and this entire area was considered a sacred and restricted area, attended only by the master or close-relatives of the household.

Contemporaneous observations show that “sajen” or “caos dhahar” were regularly offered before the krobongan usually on Thursday nights (malam Jum’at) and on particular auspicious days, such offerings include the burning of ratus (aromatic herbs), bunga setaman (flowers within a waterbowl), food (jajan pasar) and sirih/tobacco offerings, along with chicken eggs (telur ayam kampung) and straight black coffee.

Interestingly, while B. and M. Ashabranner expressed the opinion that the kratons of Surakarta and Jogyakarta contained loro blonyo, both the dalem Prabasuyasa in Solo and Prabayeksa in Yogya shows no trace of loro blonyo being sited before this ceremonial axis of the palace and this was accurate up to the documentation by Dutch electricians and historians who took photographs of the dalem’s interior in the late 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Loro blonyo statues were traditionally known to be found in dalems of senior princes who were already married and of the other nobility such as the Duchy of the Mangkunegara and the ruler’s official representative, the Patih or Chief Minister. Indeed, information provided by the late K.R.T. (as he was then) Hardjonagoro stated that: “In the Surakarta and Yogyakarta kratons, loro blonyo are not placed in the dalem but instead set in the Patihan, the Chief Minister’s residence, where the most sacred loro blonyo were kept.” (Jessup, 1990)

Tips for collecting Javanese artifacts and antiques

This is a subject near and dear to me.

The island of Java and indeed in all of this archipalego nation of Indonesia holds no shortage of wonders and wonderous things. And from the ancient cultures of Majapahit and earlier to the contemporary Islamic Mataram Kingdoms in Central Java and the various cultures that came into this country, Portugese, Dutch, English, Chinese and Middle-Eastern; all these left a mark on the arts and culture of Java, in the architecture, decoration, way-of-life, thought/speech and expression.

Caveat Emptor!

Let the buyer beware!

There has been great interest with vigorous and avid collecting throughout the preceeding decades from both foreign and local collectors and now being in the 21st century and these items not having been remade in their stylistic forms in any greater numbers, would mean that the ratio of genuine objects of really good quality out in the open is shrinking with time and the probability of finding a real treasure item is with mathematical probability - miniscule.

However, commonly manufactured items and venacular items still abound and there is something for everyone, be it ancient padlocks, old bicycles, crystal ware to ethnic items found nowhere else.

And the fakes in relation to the general antique trade and market on Java is somewhat akin to saintly relics available scattered around the Catholic world; if all were the real thing, then all the bits of the cross would be enough to build an ark!

Very often you have the very savvy seller or dealer who tells you marvellous accounts of how an item came into being; or, a very basic to graphic description of a piece, leaving some or much to your own imagination to fill in the spaces. Most of these dealers with the gift of spinning yarns would make best selling fiction authors if more literate and probably be in a more lucrative profession.

Get to know some basics on the item that you are interested in or buying.

The dealer represents the item as a really rare and interesting piece but your gut feeling tells you otherwise - Using your basic senses of sight, touch and commonsense, you should be able to tell whether an item fits into the category or basic description attributed to it, it may be helpful to accustom your eye (and add to your knowledge) to the subtle differences as to manufacture and design from area to area, district to district and varying styles of the same genre. You would appreciate that something like a Javanese Keris for example, would vary in form, make and decoration from Solo to Yogya, the handles for one are different as are the rest of the parts that make up the entire item; the court styles in the central Java would vary distinctly from the country or venacular styles found to the east and north of those centres. Watch out for convenient composites or frankenstein-makes!

Or whether an item such as a wooden decorative piece attributed to the early years of the Mataram courts of Solo and Yogya could necessarily bear machine marks and modern paint finishings to it?

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. High quality fakes have been known to be "planted" in remote village areas and rural dealers; waiting for their "re-discovery". You should think about whether in all probability could something like that still be extant in-situ.

And I have met and seen excellent craftsmen at work making fakes, from scratch to enhancing the appearance\(hence the value as well!) of ordinary items through embellishment, faking patinas and paint jobs, in most cases creating absolutely convincing pieces that could dazzle the unitiated. However as many of these craftsmen and artists have not had access to a genuine masterpiece for which to copy, they sometimes fall short when logic is applied to the strange appearance of Chinese-style furniture and combination-culture (eg, Chinese influence on a Javanese object) where the Chinese characters do not add up to a meaning or where "pakem", strict ancient standards in the make and proportion of objects is not followed, like the myriad of strange-looking contemporary loro blonyo statutes, manufactured, coloured and often-times processed to look aged but looking nothing like an original, either in make, sophistication or the simple pakem not being followed.

These are works of art in their own right but do not fall under the category of an antiquity or a genuine ethnic object. Good for tourist souvenirs or knick-knacks but not as collectables. Like the mass produced African masks that are made to look like the rare objects collected back in the 1800s by European expeditions, many of these are even produced on Java and Bali for export.

My advice is don't believe the yarns. Evaluate the item "as is"; without placing any unnecessary weight on the input from the seller/dealer; very often I tell these dealers that if their story could be valued and sold on, it would be worth very much more than the item itself. Very often these dealers are out to sucker another victim and offload another item into its final resting place. Most dealers relish at meeting and getting their hands on the types of buyers who have the dough but don't know much about the items and even better, if they could be talked into parting with money for whatever that is represented by the dealer.

From my years mingling in the trade, I formulated the Three "No-s" or "Tiga Tidak":

1. Tidak membeli barang *jelek = No buying of bad items
The Indonesian word jelek could mean bad, poorly or just plainly ugly.

2. Tidak dengan harga konyol = No(t) buying with absurd prices
This must be universally self-explanatory

3. Tidak menjadi *TPA = No(t) ending up as the final dump site
*TPA - tempat pembuangan akhir = final dump site; for if you had a really good item in hand, you would still be able to sell it in the future and not be stuck with it in sour realisation that you were duped.

I had my base in collecting Chinese ceramics and works-of-art and was studying abroad during my formative years, thus having the opportunity to examine objects at both private collections and in museums and even then after I returned to Indonesia and tried my hand at collecting some of the fascinating bits-and-pieces representative of the island culture of Java; I still managed to fall on my nose at the hands of less-than-scrupulous dealers.

They all spun such wondrous yarns that could bring tears to my eyes, or arouse my long-deceased father from his grave! A wondrous and marvellous chain of events or provenance that upon hindsight, could not be proven nor resurrected beyond the verbal accounts of the storyteller.

Knowing what you want

Knowing what you are after helps a great deal in avoiding pitfalls and disappointments down

 the line.

If you are a serious collector, as opposed to a home decorator (who just buys items to fill a niche and not for any other knowledge or intrinsic purpose), it is important to learn to build up a quality collection instead of quantity which usually translates to copious loads of clutter.

It could mean the difference in a chance meeting with the rare classical or a broad brush with the venacular.

It could be keris boards, art-deco items, crystal and glass bottles, hanging lamps, wood components of houses and other ethnographical items which make Java so interesting.

The Weird and Wonderful

This brings to mind about some western collectors (they are termed "Bule", a local slang for "white-man") who came in the preceding decades to buy stuff and apart from those who got away with container-loads of assorted stuff paid off at the depredatory foreign exchange rates of the few weeks post the May 1998 disturbances; most simply bought interesting loads of clutter, admittedly there must have been a few rustic gems amongst the quantitative total but nonetheless the majority is, clutter; for the want of a kinder descriptive.

It is mind-boggling for me to try to comprehend the reasons why anyone would buy stuff that is described as museum-quality artifacts by the container-load, ship them off to some foreign country in the west, put them in a shop there (and also claim that they were placed in storage, not offered for sale) and then to ship them again back to Indonesia to sell. And these could not sell in their entirety at a single sitting, requiring multiple sales and many at low to no reserve in order to attract buyers.

The logic doesn't add up here and this shall remain a legend for future generations.

-&-

Although I live in the western part of Java, my interest lies in the central Javanese city of Surakarta where I spent a great deal of time visiting relatives on holiday breaks from school term since the 1980s.

Much of this city and many others on Java and Bali contain a wealth of interesting items and armed with some knowledge and commonsense, a few worthy gems could still be unearthed.

Of course, all of us would like to aspire to collect a range of museum-quality and rare objects which could double-up as a retirement nest-egg; but this admittedly will take much experience, good fortune and basal knowledge of where to look, what to look out for and how to execute the acquisition fortuitously.

Know the pit-falls and do some research as fakes abound. There is a two-fold pit, one if erred only on price, which would just mean that the item is good but overpriced; and the other is more of a disaster, where you paid good money for duds.

Happy hunting!

Krobongan: the sacred shrine within the dalem...

My own dalem reassembled from a noble house in Kemlayan, Surakarta. This patang aring or wooden wall divider was removed in-situ from a limasan-roofed dalem that dates to the 18th century. The style of the carving and make of the gebyok itself is characteristically Solonese, unique to this central Javanese city.

The side view of the patang aring, constructed entirely of teak; peg-jointed, dovetailed and coloured in kincu (chinese vermillion), prada (gold leaf) and pelitur (woodstain) India.

Detail of a senthong door, fully carved with scrolling lotus and tendrils in Solonese style

A view of the senthong tengah with the krobongan structure inside

Detail of the upper panels

The old-style 2 mm glass

Detail of the central panel of the side doors, scrolling lotus and tendrils

A close-up of the krobongan with the carved pillars and original curtain drapes

The Krobongan structure is draped (dikerobongi, [dipajang, diselubungi] hence the name) with cloth coverings and is itself enclosed inside a fully enclosed wooden room constructed entirely of teak planks.

A glimpse of the sacred wooden sculptures which date to the late 18th century sitting in-state before the krobongan

Ancestral sculpture in an ancient shrine

Within houses of the nobility in Surakarta, the layout of the house follows a strict plan. The front is denoted by a pendapa of a joglo (sometimes also a limasan) roof form, followed by a kampung-styled peringgitan which is the semi-formal area where wayang puppetry performances are played where the term "ringgit" is the high Javanese word for wayang or shadow puppet, and finally the omah jero or dalem which is either another joglo or limasan roofed building.

In this last building which is usually fully enclosed by walls, it is usually broken up into three bays, a central bay known as the senthong tengah, the left bay known as the senthong kiwo and the right bay known as the senthong tengen. Both kiwo and tengen bays are used as bedrooms or storage areas for pusaka or agricultural produce; and the centre bay is a sacred space denoted as a shrine of sorts in the kejawen (Javanese philosophical thought) belief which usually houses a wooden structure not dissimilar to a canopied bed known as a pasren or krobongan.

The interior of the dalem

The pasren is where homage is paid to Sri, the goddess of rice, fertility and who brings livelihood and good fortune. And in the dalems of the nobility in Surakarta (as opposed to the Yogyakarta where all and sundry are permitted to display such statues), there are two highly significant wooden statues or figurines, known as loro blonyo, set before the pasren or krobongan in a halus kneeling/sitting position (in Yogyakarta these statues can be made from either wood or terracotta and be sitting or standing).

The pair of Sri and Sadana sitting before the krobongan at the nDalem Brotodiningratan

Etymology of the term, loro blonyo: Loro means two and Blonyo means rubbed with lulur (luluran) with a yellow powder paste. The male figure is symbolic of Wisnu and known as Raden or Batara Sadana and the female figure is Dewi Sri who is conceived of as living in heaven (kahyangan) but descends from time to time to the pasren.

The dalem where the pasren is situated may be ornamented with ancestral portraits and often contains a plancan which is for for pikes or lances (tombak), pennants and payung (song-song) of state.

The centrality of the pasren or krobongan in the Javanese house is fully reflected in the keraton. Behrend writes that this is in the Dalem Prabasuyasa which is the ritual heart of the palace complex, although the Susuhunan (ruler) did not live there, it housed the pusaka, the krobongan structure (described in Dutch as the state bed or Staatsiebed) and the loro blonyo statues representing Sri and Sadana; the eternal flame of Ki Agung Sela; the sekar wijaya kusuma, which would bloom as long as the king possessed the wahyu, the regalia (ampilan dalem; heirloom weapons, ornamental betel sets and standards carried behind the ruler) and the symbols of state, the upacara (in Surakarta, right figures cast in precious metals and embellished with rare stones and gems, ie. a cock, a crowned naga, a goose, a roe deer, a garuda, two elephants and a bull).

Modern replicas in fibreglass on display at the Keraton Museum

Throughout the relatively brief history of the Surakarta Keraton or the Kasunanan, the various symbols and furnishings of the nobility have been lost through private sale and from the property (warisan) being divided as an inheritance amongst the descendents and these included the extremely rare statues of Sri and Sadana.

Only a single pair currently exists in-situ within a royal dalem in the Baluwarti (walled enclosed area of the palace) in Surakarta and all other known pairs are dispersed in private collections mostly within Indonesia.

Two pairs of the most significant and beautiful loro blonyo were owned by KRT (as he was then) Hardjonagoro and now after his passing in 2008, they have passed on to his heirs and then onward to his nephews. These were published examples which were exhibited in various museums in the USA and the Netherlands as part of the Court Arts of Indonesia exhibition organised by the Asia Society Galleries in New York back in the early 1990s.

And without the standard sample as a pakem, for contemporaneous artisians who make new loro blonyo; these are mostly ornamental figurines that do not accurately portray the intrinsic qualities and characteristics of genuine figurines.