Gold work on blades

[Mick]

This piece illustrates the work done on Bali. Note the flatness of the gold application. There does not seem to be any heavy preparation work on the iron for the attachment of the gold in the larger areas. In fact, it seems to be installed similar to Indian Koftgari work, but not as well.

I have not seen any examples of the gold work on blades from Sulawesi. If any of the members of the forum have examples of this type of work please post some illustrations so that the members will have a general rundown of the different types of work that these excellent goldsmiths have produced in the past. (I know that there must be some people who can do this work today as I have seen blades that were under construction in Bali back in the 80’s. I just don’t know who they are.)

I don’t consider myself an expert on the keris, so there might be other types of work that I have not seen. Please feel free to enlighten the forum members as well as me and post some of these differences.