Cirebon hilt?

[kai]

Hello Séverin,

As you'll have noticed, you certainly lucked out on these 2 keris!

The first one, very finely sculptured reminds me, in the posture of the body and the arms, the handle of the South of Sumatra.

It is a relatively early JD hilt which still shows some features of it cousins from the northern Jawa coast. Very nice craftsmanship!


The second keris is exceptional and shows the classic workmanship. It exhibits a cunning similarity to keris #2886 from the Dresden museum (provenance dating from 1671): only the kruwingan of your piece are shorter; examples with a plain gandik combined with "full" greneng are quite rare, anyway. Keris #2899 from the Dresden museum (provenance dating from 1676) is also similar.

BTW, the mendak is also of special interest: I can't remember any close matches but some semblance might be seen here:
Jakarta museum E 261 (a gift of the Mataram court)
Zeevaartschool (Kweekschool voor de Zeevaart), Amsterdam [stolen] (provenance dating from 1692)

Close-ups with high resolution would be great for detailed discussions!

Regards,
Kai