Solo Boy with keris
 

I was visiting a friend a few days ago, whose hobby is collecting old photos of Indonesia, I noticed this one and copied it.

Dates from pre-WWII.

Nice image.
Interesting to note that it appears to be a full size keris.

Yeah, I thought the same David, one of the reasons I thought it was worth posting.

Probably borrowed Dad's keris for the occasion.

I was recently in Kuala Lumpur and found a nice display of keris in the National Museum of Islamic Art. They had a few interesting illustrations to go with the keris, one depicting people who are working on keris sheath and one showing the various ways to wear a keris, in Malaysia and in Java

Very interesting photo. I would have expected the child to wear a smaller kris.
By the way, a nice collection of krisses is also to be found in the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta, and an even nicer one (but of mostly more recent krisses) in the Neka Museum in Ubud (thank you Alan for the tip! :-))

Hello Marius,
Did you visit the Museum Pusaka in the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) park in Jakarta? They use to show a large collection of krisses but not very well presented. :)
Regards

Hello Jean,

Yes, I did. And yes, I saw those kerises and I was quite upset how poorly they were maintained. Some of them had active rust, and some were displayed sheathed... so I can only imagine how much rust must be on them.

Nevertheless, the collection in the Neka Museum impressed me mostly because it was by far the richest in numbers, had very nice examples and was very well maintained.
:)
I may post some photos in the next future but I made around 4000 so going through all of them is quite cumbersome.

I haven't been to this museum for a few years, but this was what the exhibits looked like in 2009:-

http://www.kerisattosanaji.com/NEKAMUSEUMPAGE1.html

Alan, are the museum pictures on your site of newer keris examples also?

Most of them are, in the pics I've published maybe only one or two are older keris. Actually, I take very little notice of this sort of thing, and I made no notes any of times I've been to this museum. There is one very notable old keris in the museum, but I have not published a photo of it.

Many thanks Alan.

Thank you Alan for the photos! Your photos are so much better than mine!

I think I have seen all the pieces from your photos in the museum.

And they still are very well maintained so for me was a real delight to admire them (thank you once again for telling me about this museum!).

My only frustration was that there was no comprehensive book with the kerises, except a very small one I already had and a big and nice one that was only in Indonesian.

Hello Marius,
The most interesting krisses from the Neka Museum collection are shown & described in their nice book "Bali Keris Bersejarah", and the text is not very important not to say rather confusing IMO....
Regards :)

--- and that is apart from accuracy.

But yeah, the pics are very good, and you don't really need to be able to understand much BI to understand the captions