[A. G. Maisey]

Michel, I also know the basics of variation between Surakarta dress and Yogyakarta dress. However, I recognise that there are a number of variations in the formal dress of Surakarta, and of Yogyakarta.

What I can see in this photo of PB IX is that PB IX is dressed in a way that is superficially similar to one of the dress forms used in Yogyakarta:- the blangkon does not have the Surakarta front knot, the jacket is similar to a Yogyakarta style , however, it lacks some of the detail, and appears to button on the opposite side, with the fall over the left thigh, rather than the right. Most of all I note that PB IX is wearing a Surakarta keris.

It would be very strange , I feel, to mix Surakarta keris dress with Yogyakarta formal dress.

To my mind this photograph raises questions in respect of the dress, and that is why I said that I do not know sufficient about the variations in forms of dress to be able to say with any certainty that this is definitely Yogyakarta dress. It may be; it also may not be. It might be a Surakarta form that has, or had, a particular usage. My level of knowledge is insufficient to be able to rule out this possibility.

If it is Yogyakarta dress it is an extraordinarily strange thing to see the senior royal personage in Jawa dressed in what is in essence a form that carries in the eyes of his own court, a lower level of prestige.

You were quite right to question my use of the the term "rival house".

Of course Yogyakarta is not a rival house to Surakarta.

Surakarta is the senior house, Yogyakarta is the "new shoot from the old branch".

There is no rivalry. At least not in the eyes of Surakarta.

Surakarta is the House of Mataram.
Yogyakarta was created by the Dutch as a political measure, and as branch of the House of Mataram, it remains that:- a branch. Similar to, but larger and more prestigious than the Mangkunegaraan and the Pakualamanan.However, the Mankunegaraan and the Pakualamanan cannot be referred to as "Karaton". The word Karaton means " the place of the Ratu (ruler)". In Yogyakarta the Sultan is the ruler, in Surakarta the Susuhunan (Javanese), or Sunan (Islamic) is the ruler. The Mangkunegaraan and the Pakualamanan are the seats of subsidiary princes, not rulers, thus they are istanas or palaces, not Karatons.

But to return to the matter of dress.
In essence, I know sufficient about Javanese dress forms to understand that I know almost nothing.