Bali Keris - Ex From Frey Collection

[David]

Well, i debated, as i always do with every keris, whether i actually wanted to post images of this, but since it has been published in a major magazine before and is already in the public domain i figured why not show some better images of it. It's kind of slow around here lately anyway.
This keris was once in the collection of Edward Frey and graced the cover of Arts Of Asia in 1975 when he wrote an article for that issue. The blade is around 16".

[Battara]

What a great piece! Congratulations. To save me from flipping pages, is this Balinese?

[Rick]

Really like the thin spidery pamor lines .
The cup is a different and unusual look; nicely understated .

[David]

Yep, understated is part of what i like about it Rick...and the way it feels in the hand. Have others seen this hilt form before?
Yes José, Balinese.

[A. G. Maisey]

That hilt and selut has troubled me from the time I first saw it, back on AofA in 1975.

I've seen similar, but not the same type, of hilt cups on Bali keris, but those I have seen have never had this sort of lung-lungan motif, which to my eye, in this context, looks out of place. It is a casting, so one would expect to see more than just this single example, my feeling is that this hilt cup has been modified from a Bugis hilt cup.

The hilt I feel can be interpreted as a wooden gerantim, I cannot see any other Bali hilt form that looks similar. It does have echoes of the bondolan form, but the carving reminds me of nothing so much as the gerantim.

I cannot associate this particular hilt form with what I have seen identified as mainland Bali, so I'm inclined to place it as maybe Lombok --- the Bugis hilt cup --- or maybe far west Bali, or even far east Jawa, Banyuwangi.

The sesrengatan wrongko is an exact equivalent of the Javanese ladrangan form, used for formal dress occasions.

[RSWORD]

David, thank you for sharing your lovely and unique example. One thing I notice on this one, that I have also noticed on a lot of other Keris, is there are a fair bit of scratches on the surface of the blade. They mostly run horizontal to the blade as well as across the ridge line. I see this in a lot of Keris and have wondered about it. Is it scabbard wear? You wouldn't think the direction of the scratches would be horizontal. Are they grind marks from manufacture that was never fully polished out? Does this indicate a particular level of quality? The more refined the polish the better the pamor is going to show I would think. Or, is it simply from decades of being handled? Blades being laid around without the scabbard, on top of other blades, etc. nothing any of us would do of course but could answer what causes this kind of surface abrasions. Just curious.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

That hilt and selut has troubled me from the time I first saw it, back on AofA in 1975.

I've seen similar, but not the same type, of hilt cups on Bali keris, but those I have seen have never had this sort of lung-lungan motif, which to my eye, in this context, looks out of place. It is a casting, so one would expect to see more than just this single example, my feeling is that this hilt cup has been modified from a Bugis hilt cup.

The hilt I feel can be interpreted as a wooden gerantim, I cannot see any other Bali hilt form that looks similar. It does have echoes of the bondolan form, but the carving reminds me of nothing so much as the gerantim.

I cannot associate this particular hilt form with what I have seen identified as mainland Bali, so I'm inclined to place it as maybe Lombok --- the Bugis hilt cup --- or maybe far west Bali, or even far east Jawa, Banyuwangi.

I'm not sure i'd say that it troubles me Alan, but i see what you mean. Though the way the cup is fitted to the hilt this doesn't seem to me to be some casual refit from parts that were simply laying around. It is tight, secure and semi permanent, a marriage of intention and it honestly doesn't look like any Bugis cup or motif that i am familiar with.
While i see what you mean about the hilt bearing some resemblance to aspects of gerantim hilts it seems more an amalgam of these two forms, one of which is, of course, not Balinese.

[David]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

...my feeling is that this hilt cup has been modified from a Bugis hilt cup.

When one examines this hilt closely when in hand it becomes apparent from the fit that either the hilt was carved to fit the cup or the cup was formed or re-formed to fit the hilt.