[A. G. Maisey]

One of the things I do when I look carefully at a keris that is in a photo is to run that photo through Photoshop, alter contrast and brightness levels, crop a section of the image and increase size to what it will bear, sharpen. Often, but not always I use a big magnifying glass to look at the screen image.Sometimes, but not always it is possible to see more from a photo by doing this.
I've just tried it with Jean's first photo and I've finished up with an image that I cannot open, even though it was saved as JPG.

So any comments on Jean's photos will be made on only the basis of what I can see on the screen. I use a 13.5X10.5 screen.

keris #1. post 8.

I believe close examination would show this blade to be a robahan, that is, a blade that has been altered.
The carving at the gandhik is not something that I recognise as an old motif, it looks crisp, and I feel that microscopic examination might show a patch welded into this part of the blade. This patch might have been made from the original gonjo, as the present gonjo looks as if it might be a replacement.

Stylistically this blade looks Majapahit, but it is most definitely not Majapahit. The material looks a bit like Gresik, if it is Gresik it will have a slightly greasy feel to the pamor material, if its not Gresik then I cannot classify and substantiate as it does not appear to fit a major strand, and it has probably been altered anyway. My gut feeling is something done for the trade and originating around Surabaya.

The overall look of the wrongko , with all that nicely patterned wood, is what I think of as East Jawa, but the "S" shaped line that runs down the front of the gambar is a line that I have seen identified with Banyumas by people who know a lot more than I do, however, most Banyumas wrongkos that I've actually handled have been fitted with pendok. This is where we get into difficulties, and the reason is this:-

in a karaton setting the forms are fairly strictly structured and identified for use by whom and when, but when we move away from a karaton into a small town, or a village, that structure disappears and we have a situation where the form of the wrongko is limited by the skill of the carver and by the desires of the customer. Thus, when we try to classify these wrongko forms and styles that lack the guiding hand of tradition and authority, we are in a situation where we do not have guidelines that permit supportable identification of point of geographic origin.

Collectors like to, maybe need to, classify, but when we cannot support a classification what is the point?

We can certainly classify broadly:- Jawa, Bali, Bugis. But when we look at 50 wrongkos by 50 different pairs of hands in 50 different locations, how can we possibly classify? Under these conditions maybe the best we can do is what I did yesterday:- form a quick first impression.

Or, we could go the way that I've seen a lot of people go in Solo:- for a blade --- "outside Jawa", for dress--- "outside Surakarta, not Jogja"; what is left unsaid is "well, its not of any importance anyway, because its not from anywhere that counts, so who cares?"

The Javanese attitude to keris is just a wee bit different to the attitude of collectors outside Jawa who give equal importance to every keris, no matter what it is, or where its from.

Anyway, coming back to post 8 keris #1.

From what I can see, the blade has been played with and made more attractive; the blade and the wrongko are unlikely to be an original mating; my feeling is that I'm looking at a dealer's montage , but one put together with a great deal of care and expertise, possibly the wrongko was obtained first, then a suitable blade was found, the blade "improvement" was done, the gonjo was made so that it exceeded the size of the wrongko hole, which was probably small to begin with. I doubt that this was done recently. I think that this sort of alteration probably stopped in the 1960's early 1970's. I only ever knew one man who could do this sort of thing well, and he died years ago, probably well into his 80's --- he always reckoned he was the same age as myself, but the fact of the matter is that he didn't know when he was born. He lived in Jogja.

So, an old alteration, bit of a mixture, but the blade is stylistically Majapahit, and the impression of the wrongko, principally because of the very attractive wood, is East Jawa. A collector's keris rather than a keris that we can positively link to a specific local geographic area. I'd be happy with a classification of simply "Jawa" for this keris, because I cannot really substantiate anything more detailed, but again, my first impression is East Jawa.


See how confusing this game can get?

I'll look slow and careful at another keris when I have another hour to spare.