THOMAS MURRAY

ASIATICA– ETHNOGRAPHICA

Pori Roto Ritual Banner Toraja people, Sulawesi Cotton; pelangi tie-dye 19th/very early 20th Century 174 x 26 inches (442 x 66 cm)

Pelangi means “rainbow,” seldom better expressed than in this extremly rare Toraja banner

By appointment

775 E. Blithedale #321, Mill Valley, CA94941 Tel 415.332.3445 Fax 415.332.3454 Email: tmurray@well.com
INDONESIAN SCULPTURE

thebronzeweaver SUSAN SCOLLAY

Australia’s National Gallery recently paid an unprecedented sum for this enigmatic ancestral Southeast Asian bronze sculpture described by its Asian art Curator, Robyn Maxwell as “the most important bronze sculpture found in the Indonesian Archipelago in the 20th century”.

THE BRONZE WEAVER Flores, Indonesia, 6th century

AD . 25.8 x 22.8 x 15.2 cm, (10" x 9" x 6"). National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2006.412

UNVEILING THE AUS $4 MILLION PURCHASE LATE LAST YEAR , the NGA’s recently appointed Director, Ron Radford, described the figure as “a masterpiece of 6th century Indonesian sculpture” and the most important Southeast Asian object in the NGA’s collection. “The statue,” he said, “provides a valuable link to our large and important Southeast Asian textile collection – the richest and most diverse of its kind.” Thermo-luminescence tests on the bronze’s central clay core determine that the sculpture was made between 556 and 596

AD . The archaic figure had been stored as a family heirloom on the island of Flores in the eastern part of the Indonesian Archipelago, between the better-known islands of Bali and Timor, just north of Australia. Flores has a long history of expertise in bronze casting, a tradition often compared to that of the earlier Southeast Asian bronze period – Dong Son – named after an archaeological site in North Vietnam famous for its funerary kettle drums. NGA Curator Robyn Maxwell has surmised that the later date of the gallery’s new purchase suggests the existence of a local bronze tradition that continued in the outer islands of the Indonesian archipelago after the decline of the Dong Son culture about 200 AD . The existence of an independent island bronze age would provide an art historical link to the later Javanese bronze age, known to have peaked between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. However, the bronze figure’s exact origins remain uncertain, since the NGA says that little is known of the animist metalwork tradition in the region. Animism predates the dissemination of the Indian influenced Hindu-Buddhist religions in the area, and is still practised in remote areas of Southeast Asia. Expertly cast in the lost wax technique, the weaver wears only a necklace, what appear to be large hoop earrings, but which may be her own extended, plugged earlobes, and a version of the type of calf-length skirt worn until recently in outlying regions of Indonesia and Borneo. Yet her carefully braided hairstyle is apparently not one that has been noted in the region in recorded history. Similar body-tension looms, braced against poles rather than the feet as shown in the sculpture, are still used in the Indonesian islands. Foot-braced looms, identical to the one so accurately depicted in the bronze remain in use in parts of Southeast Asia and China. Articles in the Australian press have raised questions about how the sculpture, photographed by a Harvard researcher in Flores as late as the 1970s, found its way into a yet to be named private collection in Europe and thence to Canberra. Officials at the NGA have ignored the controversy to date, preferring to reiterate their policy of giving priority to future acquisitions of works of art that represent what they describe as “the highest cultural achievements of Australia’s Southeast Asian and Pacific neighbours.” The tiny sculpture is currently displayed in the NGA’s newly dedicated Southeast Asian wing alongside a selection from the four hundred textiles from the Holmgren & Spertus Collection, which were purchased by the NGA in 2002 for AUS $6.5million (see HALI 135, pp.74-81). That acquisition augmented the NGA’s already considerable holdings of textiles from the Southeast Asian region, most of which date to the 18th and 19th centuries, with others attributed to earlier periods. A considerable number of them were almost certainly woven on a similar loom to that crafted 1,400 years ago by the anonymous creator of ‘The Bronze Weaver’. The NGA’s chairman, Allen Myer, says the statue’s “age, its beauty and the art story it tells make it a compelling buy.” It points to the antiquity of the cultural traditions of the region, and as a bonus it’s a “destination work” and “ a crowd pleaser” that he hopes Australians will come to appreciate as much as works of European art or antiquities with equivalent, if not greater, price tags.

HALI ISSUE 151 57