Silver Keris

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by mariusgmioc

To me, this keris looks very new (max 10 years) and very Javanese and definitely not Balinese.

Am I right?! Am I wrong?!

Hello,

The pictures were made with a modern DSLR, the Nikon D7000 plus a high quality lens. Every picture has seen different automatic algorithms to increase the picture quality, without any possibility of influence by the user. The D7000 doesnt allow to use the raw-data. What I try to say is that pictures of old artifacts taken with a modern DSLR like this are always looks more modern than they are, always!

1: The scabbard of this Keris has been worn without any question with the typical signs of strain in the middle of the scabbard. Who was wearing such a big Kris ten years ago?

2: The blade itself has a mirror surface finish and a mild Waranga but there is corrosion everywhere and it takes some decades until a blade is corroded like this.

During the last cleaning the "foot" of the scabbard became loose and the resin inside the foot and also the wood from the core seem to be much older than 10 or 25 years.


If I see a artifact which is of unknown style to me, I would never judge the age of the piece by pictures. Especially if they are had been taken by an DSLR and if the artifact is made from gold or silver.

Without any question, this Keris is non traditional but this fact alone is no evidence for a recent production. What shall I say, my collection is full of unusual blades, I'm a kind of magnet for unusual artifacts


Regards,
Roland

[Jean]

I do not wish to speculate about the age of this piece from the pics but would like to make the following observations:
. The silver color looks very clear, there is not much dark patina in the cavities which is typical of old silver artefacts. The silver quality seems excellent.
. I don't see much corrosion on the blade but some artificial pitting made by punching on the ganja and the pudak sategal on the sides of the blade around the kinatah.
. The kinatah fully covers the Ganesha figure but around the axe which he holds in one of his left hands there is a trace of gluing or welding which could indicate that the figure was added later.
. From my observations the "studs" on top of the ganja seem to be a recent javanese fashion.
. I have some quite recent silver krisses in which the wood core appears old and dry as this one.

Regards

[kai]

With precious metals any age estimation tends to be very tentative since newly pieces can be made to look old and genuine old pieces can look spanking new if repolished (or well preserved). Thus, we tend to look for a combination of craftsmanship, patina (if any), wear/damages, stylistic and other hints. However, none of these are really reliable since precious metals are fairly easy to be mended with...

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

I guess we all agree that these 2 hilts are of the same style.

Still, I'd be very cautious of any claims like same maker/workshop/school - successful designs tend to get copied very quickly!

My best guess would be that this non-traditional hilt reflects the European influence during the first half of the 20th century (up to Indonesian independence) in Bali (or, possibly less likely, Lombok). I can't rule out a Madurese origin nor Kota Gede work though.

Regards,
Kai
--
Photo credits: left hand pic cropped from the catalog of the IFICAH exhibition (Weihrauch & al. 2015), copyright Günther Heckmann (IFICAH); right hand pic from Roland (post #1).

[kai]

The scabbard is certainly interesting and with 3 examples we have established an pattern...

Note that Roland's example has the tips curled inside while in the 2 examples from the IFICAH exhibition they are pointing outside. Moreover, the carved motifs of all 3 examples are very different!

Any hints for the buntut being a repair for a broken scabbard tip in your piece, Roland?

I'm not convinced that Jean's pendok has any relationship with these 3 discussed here. (Thanks for adding the pic!)

Regards,
Kai
--
Photo credits: left from Roland (post #1); middle & right hand pic cropped from the catalog of the IFICAH exhibition (Weihrauch & al. 2015), copyright Günther Heckmann.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by kai

.... interesting and with 3 examples we have established an pattern....

Thank you Kai for posting the three examples side by side!

Originally Posted by kai

I'm not convinced that Jean's pendok has any relationship with these 3 discussed here. (Thanks for adding the pic!)

Agree with you, certainly no relationship with the three other examples.

Regards,
Detlef

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by kai

I guess we all agree that these 2 hilts are of the same style.

Still, I'd be very cautious of any claims like same maker/workshop/school - successful designs tend to get copied very quickly!

My best guess would be that this non-traditional hilt reflects the European influence during the first half of the 20th century (up to Indonesian independence) in Bali (or, possibly less likely, Lombok). I can't rule out a Madurese origin nor Kota Gede work though.

Agree in all points with you!

[David]

Originally Posted by Roland_M

The pictures were made with a modern DSLR, the Nikon D7000 plus a high quality lens. Every picture has seen different automatic algorithms to increase the picture quality, without any possibility of influence by the user. The D7000 doesnt allow to use the raw-data. What I try to say is that pictures of old artifacts taken with a modern DSLR like this are always looks more modern than they are, always!

While i will not speculate on the age of this piece at the moment i will make a few observations.
Firstly i would like to comment on your statements here Roland because as a professional photographer for 35 years who has worked with modern digital cameras (all Nikon) for almost 15 years your above remarks make absolutely no sense to me. I am familiar with the D7000 and it does indeed allow the use of RAW data. You have photographed a quality item with a fairly high quality camera. You did a technically accurate job and shot in reasonably good light producing sharp and detailed photographs that reveal both the craftsmanship and the wear. But i can think of no reason why the equipment itself would make your keris look newer than it does in person.
But even in hand we must be careful assessing age based solely on the appearance of wear and the over all condition of the piece. We know, for instance, that there are early examples of keris in European collections that have the appearance of being made yesterday. We must look carefully at the type of techniques that were applied to the crafting. Can we detect modern tools used? We must study the style of the embellishments. Does this appear to be an older style of kinatah? Can we recognize if this application and style of gold is distinctly Balinese or Javanese? Can we provide any other examples to support that opinion?
In trying to identify the origins of the blade, Marius thinks it looks Javanese? Is this a pamor that we are likely to see on a Javanese blade? What about the dhapur?
Lastly, could you add the dimensions of the keris to this discussion, both blade and sheath. The blade is obviously much shorter than the sheath. Thanks!

[kai]

Hello Roland,

The blade itself has a mirror surface finish and a mild Waranga but there is corrosion everywhere and it takes some decades until a blade is corroded like this.

In a tropical climate, the corrosion visible here can easily develop in much shorter time!

I'm uneasy with this blade. To me it looks like a larger blade got sacrificed for carving the "picture"/figural gandik as well as the open-worked kinatah on the blade (and raised kinatah on the gonjo); especially the cuts made into the base of the blade to demarcate the kinatah borders does not flow with traditional esthetics IMHO. While Ganesha is done akin Hindu style, the general craftsmanship looks almost Madura/Jawa to me; however, the warangan looks acceptable by Balinese standards - something I've not seen coming from Jawa/Madura mranggi yet...

While Madura as well as East Java received quite a bit of Balinese cultural input by expats, I'm inclined to believe these ensembles may be from Bali, possibly pre-independence attempts to sell keris to affluent European visitors?

Regards,
Kai

[Roland_M]

Hello,

More pictures and the measurements.
I hope that the Keris is still interesting and that I can add more good pics for the discussion.

The piece which I call "foot" was solid in place. It became loose recently, after I tried out a new cleaning method with sweet almond oil, which is very thin. The wooden core looks old. Even the the red wax-resin-mixture (?) doesnt looks new to me. And not to forget it was hermetically closed before I was using the almond oil.
The scabbard is full of small dents and one large one from which I think it could be caused by bending stress, the typically markings.
The piercing in the area above the greneng were made with great effort, not just simple drillings.
The Ganesha-figure is an integral part of the blade, no upgrade.

Really hard to say what it is. One possible old background could be, that it was made for the dutch VOC as a present for proved soldiers.


Regards,
Roland

p.s. all pictures are untouched, I reduced the size only.

[David]

Well, i don't think there is any question that this blade has some age. That doesn't mean that it is not of the contemporary period of keris manufacture. Let's keep in mind that even a keris made in 1977 will have 40 years of age on it.
Thanks for the detailed dimensions. Though the blade length is more in keeping with blades from Jawa and Madura i do not believe the length of only 14.5 inches counts it out as Balinese work. I personally own 2 keris which are most certainly Bali/Lombok blades that are 12.5 and 13.5 inches respectively.
Roland, the VOC ceased operation at the very end of the 18th century. While we may be able to continue debating the age of the blade i, for one, would rule out that it comes from that early a period of time.
I don't think there is really any question that we are indeed looking at a keris of some quality so regardless of where the final consensus falls regarding age and origin i believe we can all agree that this is still a keris worthy of discussion.

[A. G. Maisey]

I am finding the comments posted to this thread very interesting, and I do hope that discussion continues, however, I will not be taking part in this discussion because of personal reasons.

I do have one question.

the IFICAH exhibition has been mentioned a couple of times.

I do not have the hardcopy book that went with this exhibition, and regrettably I live a little bit too far away from the place where it was held to permit me to have visited.

My question is this:-

were the keris in this exhibition accompanied by reliable provenance?

[Richard W]

That is an excellent and exceptional object, old or not so very old, it is magnificent; and in 300 years it will continue to be wonderful, as it is today. Would love it in my collection. I would hang it between my Rajistan silver work and my Balinese items.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

[Roland_M]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

were the keris in this exhibition accompanied by reliable provenance?[/B]

Detlef (sajen) knows some of the founders of the foundation and he probably knows the person, who donated the different Silver-Keris to the foundation.
He will try to find out in the next weeks, who is responsible for the descriptions.

Roland

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by Roland_M

.... who is responsible for the descriptions.

For this I don't need some weeks, the catalog descriptions are from Dr. Achim Weihrauch, Dr. Udo Kloubert and Adni Aljunied.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

the IFICAH exhibition has been mentioned a couple of times.

I do not have the hardcopy book that went with this exhibition

The link in my post #17 gives you access to the full book (PDF file).

were the keris in this exhibition accompanied by reliable provenance?

Well, the short answer is probably no - unless you define reliable (and possibly provenance... ).

The keris in the exhibition were loans from private collections and there is no provenance stated for the 2 keris shown in this thread; however, most specimens in famous museum collections don't have any reasonable provenance either.

I assume the accompanying descriptions were done by Achim Weihrauch, Adni Aljunied, and Udo Kloubert. Certainly many keris in museum collections have not been studied in depth by experts accepted by any of the senior keris people from the land of Jawa (and if so they probably won't agree with each other either !).

Thus, I guess we have to live with what we have. The authors' estimates resonates with our discussion here: "Earlier 20th century, maybe end of 19th century." [As mentioned, I'd tend towards a later date.]

I guess, some pointers from you would not hurt though, Alan!

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you Kai, you have given me precisely the response I expected.

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

My question is this:-

were the keris in this exhibition accompanied by reliable provenance?

Hello Alan,

Kai has already said what I can say but like Kai I will try to get further informations.

Regards,
Detlef

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you Detlef.

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by David

Well, i don't think there is any question that this blade has some age.

Hello David,

Well, the blade certainly has "some" age but in my opinion it is less than 20, most likely less than 10 years old.

The pamor is crisp and clear and all the fine details of the carvings are equally crisp and clear.

From all what I know, even a blade kept in ideal conditions, in time will show less contrast of the pamor.

Moreover, the style/theme of decoration is almost identical to the style/theme I saw in several new kerises I have seen in the market in Solo. The pamor also seems the average pamor one can see on many new kerises.

Last but not least, the quality and detail of the engraving doesn't appear to be neither very elaborate, nor very well executed. To me, it looks by no means better than the average kerises I have seen in the market in Solo or at the dealer in Jogja.

All these make me be pretty sure it is a recently made, Javanese blade. But I have very little experience with kerises and I base my judgement mostly on comparisons with the kerises I saw during my recent trip to Indonesia and the few that passed through my hands.

So, if I am wrong in my assertion, I would appreciate if you or anybody on this forum can help and educate me as to what makes the blade of this keris Balinese, older than 10 years or otherwise very special?!

Regards,

Marius

[Sajen]

Hello Marius,

only one short question: Would you expect to see Ganesha (a hindu god) in this execusion on a blade fom a islamic region?

I've seen and handled keris blades in nearly mint condition which has been verifiable more as hundred years old.

Best regards,
Detlef

[mariusgmioc]

Originally Posted by Sajen

Hello Marius,

only one short question: Would you expect to see Ganesha (a hindu god) in this execusion on a blade fom a islamic region?

I've seen and handled keris blades in nearly mint condition which has been verifiable more as hundred years old.

Best regards,
Detlef

Hello Detlef,

Not only that I would expect to see Ganesha, but I have actually seen several new Javanese keris blades with Ganesha and some with Garuda. They were also carved in gold-work very similar to the one of this blade. I suppose they were made for the tourist market.

I have seen the respective blades in the market in Solo and at a dealer in Jogja, and I am pretty sure they were locally made and not "imported" from Bali.

Just have a look at the link below and see a perfect example of a very un-Islamic Ganesho-Garuda-Himero-Naga Javanese keris that is in my possesion:

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=21200

Also see photos of another un-Islamic antropomorphic Javanese keris and of an un-Islamic Madurese Garuda Keris (that both were in my posession).

Last but not least, I am attaching a photo from the book "The Javanese Kris" by Isaac Groneman, that also illustrates a Ganesha example.



PS: I have more examples but they are currently on sale.