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#1 |
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: switzerland
Posts: 298
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hello together
I bought this today and I'm not sure Keris tourist piece or not. to any info grateful gruss Chregu |
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#2 |
Keris forum moderator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,098
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Based on dress alone i would say this is a Madura keris, not Sumatra. This style of dress is often associated with "tourist" variety Madura keris. Yours seems an older example with an even older blade.
Back in the early 20th century many dutch soldiers brought keris like these back from being stationed in Indonesia. Perhaps one might say that was the beginning of the "tourist" keris. Those bring-backs usually had real, though lower end blades in some sort of carved sheath like yours. Sometimes the figure depicted is a lion. Yours appears to be some sort of bird. You may, therefore, be able to consider this a "tourist" keris, though certainly not in the same way as a contemporary blade in brand new dress made for the market these days. Personally i find keris like this one very interesting and collectable even if there intention in their current form was for sale to returning dutch soldiers. They are a piece of history if you will. ![]() |
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#3 |
Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: switzerland
Posts: 298
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hi david
thanke for the detailed answer. Indonesian history is not my area of expertise. gruss Chregu |
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#4 |
Member
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,852
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Yes, its a Madura keris, and as David mentions, this style of dress is sometimes associated with keris that were produced for collectors in the period from around 1880 through to WWII.
However, simply because there seems to have been production directed at the collector market does not make this style of dress any less desirable, in fact, old examples of this dress style are now relatively scarce and for the better ones, quite expensive, especially those which are carved as lions. In my opinion, it is wrong to think of this type of dress as "tourist", because it is a genuine and old established type of dress, however Europeans favoured it because it is elaborate, and blades redressed for sale in the later colonial era were probably dressed this way to facilitate sale. Examples of this dress can be seen in the museum of the Kraton Sumenep, in Madura. There are a number of different styles, all having different names. I understand the generic name is "gabilan", but there is another larger style that is named "brahmana rsi". I am unclear on the distinction between the two, except that the brahmana rsi is larger. I do not favour the term "tourist keris", most especially for any type of keris that does have a legitimate old form. If I consider the types of keris that have been made specifically for the tourist market there is really only one type from Indonesia that I can fit squarely into that box, I do not have an example I can show a photo of, but it is a Balinese production, the scabbard is almost always of Makassar ebony, but later ones were stained black, the carving of scabbard and hilt is often of a very high standard, and very often the blade is a piece of flat iron with an etched pamor design. This type of keris was produced exclusively for tourist consumption. Last edited by A. G. Maisey; 8th April 2010 at 11:14 PM. |
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#5 |
Vikingsword Staff
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 6,287
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This old thread :
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showth...gabilan+madura And a Lion form . ![]() No mendak needed; it's carved right in . ![]() |
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#6 | |
Keris forum moderator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 7,098
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I agree with you completely Alan. This notion of the "tourist" keris is really a misnomer. Those nasty cut out blades with the paint on pamor from Bali would qualify, yes, and those souvenir Malay letter opener keris with the silver plated blades certainly do, but beyond that... ![]() |
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#7 |
Member
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Singapore
Posts: 1,180
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I thought the blade is a very decent blade! Has a settled old look to it, and definitely made by a pandai who knew what he was doing.
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