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Originally Posted by mariusgmioc
Regarding the example from the Metropolitan, LaRocca identifies a very similar figure featured on the cover of his book, as Rahvana.
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True, people attribute. Even supposedly learned people attribute. That still doesn't mean that they are ultimately correct. I do wonder where that leaves us as collectors though. While i fully understand Alan's reasoning on why we cannot really know the true intention of the maker and the actual purpose behind the creation of any specific figural hilt does that mean that these hilts defy collector categorization completely. There are, of course, good points and bad points to the concept of categorization in this field. We may not know, for instance, if a hilt that appears in this classic form we have in the past IDed as Bayu was intended to actually be Bayu, or perhaps represent the owners ancestor
in the form of Bayu or whether it is just an artistic representation that happens to follow this form we know as Bayu. But what about for the sake of communication between collectors. For instance, i am fairly sure that if i said to many of you that i have an interesting Bali Bayu hilt, in all likelihood you would have a pretty good idea of what to expect before i finally present a photo of said hilt. This seems to be the way it goes in most collecting. We name things so that we have a common understanding of what we are talking about with each other.
