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Originally Posted by Henk
David,
Very good question.
The blades where older blades indeed and mostly not top-notch blades. In my opinion and that's why you see them so much here in Holland is that these dresses were purely made for bringback gifts for mainly the Dutch soldiers and other Dutch employees in those days.
In my opinion the Maduran owned keris in their proper maduran dress and not in dress of lower quality wood, that was used for these bringback kerisses.
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My answer would be :
look at the extravagant carving of the Donoriko hilts !
If this sheer exuberance in the carver's art can be practiced in this medium then why not in the Wrongkos and Gandars of Madura keris ?
So I would disagree that these were purely "Visitor"
oriented works .
Visitor influenced, perhaps; or was it assimilation into the culture ?