A gamble, your opinion?

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by David

This may be an "old" blade", but the winged figure appears to my eyes to be a much later addition, as then would be the kinatah. Doesn't seem like the type of workmanship i would expect from older kinatah, though the material may well be real gold.

Good possible but the figure and with it the kinatah work is certainly not added recently, have a look to the gonjo where the gold is majoritarian gone. This blade isn't a great work of art but the kinatah is done with 22 carat gold when I remember correct.

Regards,

Detlef

[Sajen]

Originally Posted by David

This may be an "old" blade", but the winged figure .....

BTW, I think that the "winged figure" is a nymph, a blade with a similar gandhik figure is shown in "Keris Jawa antara Mistik dan Nalar" from Haryono Haryoguritno on page 167 (Gbr. 4.20r) labeled as gandhik WIDADARI. Widadari is a heaven nymph so far I know.

Regards,

Detlef

[Jean]

Originally Posted by David

I think we all have our own unique guidelines for this Jean, which is perhaps part of the problem. I don't really question yours in general, though you might want to re-consider your use of the word "antique" in this regard. I say this because "antique" does have a fairly commonly accepted definition of items which are over 100 years old. Since you use that term to describe only items that are 400-700 years old specifically you might find that when you use the term in this manner that confusion might ensue.

Hello David,
Thank you for your valid comment; I could not find a better term and the confusion comes from the French language in which one definition of antique is just very old/ very ancient without any specific age in mind. Any suggestion for a replacement term?
Regards

[David]

Originally Posted by Jean

Any suggestion for a replacement term?

hmmm....by your standard, perhaps "very, VERY old"?

[David]

Originally Posted by Sajen

Good possible but the figure and with it the kinatah work is certainly not added recently, have a look to the gonjo where the gold is majoritarian gone.

hmmm....i'm not sure i see anything in the gonjo area that tells me one way or another when this decoration was added. The simple fact that some of it is now gone does not determine the age of the work for me. As you point out, this blade is no great work of art. My suspicion here is that the carving and gold were added in recent times to increase the interest and resale of this blade. It is, of course, just a suspicion. I don't want to take away from your joy of this blade, but you did present it as an "old" example of kinatah and i still have serious doubts to that.

[A. G. Maisey]

Old keris.

When we begin to attempt to put an actual age on a keris blade we really are digging ourselves further and further into a mire.

How is it possible to estimate the age of a keris blade?

Javanese people have overcome this problem by simply ignoring the actual age of a blade in years and opting to classify a blade in stylistic and material terms:- the dreaded tangguh.

But this is not particularly reliable when attempting to estimate age of a blade, as throughout history, copies of keris from earlier eras have been made. The materials used in early keris are still available today, as they have been throughout history. If a talented maker were to make a keris of Majapahit pattern today, using the type of materials used in tangguh Majapahit keris, in two or three hundred years, who could know if this was a well preserved keris from the 15th century, or a copy from the 21st century?

It is possible to distress a blade to make it look positively archaic.

Less than honest dealers have found this to be a particularly valuable technique, especially to assist sales to those people who prize age above excellence and who have a very confused and minimal understanding of the keris.

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to examine a good number of very early keris held in European museums. Many of these keris had a recorded provenance dating back to the beginning of the 1600's. Most were in perfect condition, some were in as brand new condition. Some displayed a style that is usually associated with later periods. A couple bore extremely complex pamor, a feature that we do not expect to see in truly old keris.

I would defy anybody to examine these keris and in the absence of any prior knowledge of provenance, date them to the 1600's.

Many years ago I was able to handle a number of Javanese keris that were kept in the Surakarta Karaton storage rooms. Many of these keris were well over 100 years old, but they looked as if they had come off the work bench the day before I saw them.
So how do we estimate the age of a keris blade?

In my opinion there is only one certain way, and that is by knowledge of provenance.

Lacking this knowledge we can turn to tangguh, which will give a stylistic guide to era, which can then be matched to some degree against material type. We can feed the impression of overall condition into the equation, but as already pointed out, this is not at all reliable.

For an experienced person, tangguh will give an indication --- only an indication --- of the era when a blade might have been made. A blade that is classifiable as a recent tangguh is more likely to be from the related era than a blade that is classified as an archaic tangguh.

In other words, Mataram Amangkurat is more likely to be from around 1700 than Janggala is to be from around 1200.

Surakarta can be relied on to date from after the middle of the 1700's, but Mataram Senopaten is likely to be a little later than 1600 --- perhaps as much as one generation later.

This gives some indication of the accuracy with which we can date a keris blade when using tangguh:- a Surakarta blade from, say, 1800, if in perfect condition is virtually indistinguishable from a Surakarta blade of the early 20th century. Thus, extending the approximate age of a Mataram Senopaten blade by a generation is really being very conservative.

But one thing does seem to be true:- if we take a group of people knowledgeable in tangguh, they will invariably classify more recent blades according to more recent eras and older blades according to older eras. In other words, a Surakarta blade will never be classified as Majapahit, nor a Pajang blade as Hamengkubuwanaan.

So although tangguh has been horribly corrupted by the current generation of slippery shonks with whom we are all familiar, it is still the only base that may give us some guidance in respect of the age of a keris blade.

It is totally useless for anybody to just look at a blade and then form the opinion that it is "old".

I think we've all heard the jokes about the thirty year old gigolo who was mistaken for an old man of 70. He had had a hard life. The same can apply to keris.

[Jean]

Originally Posted by Sajen

Hello Jean,

have had the same thoughts before but I am very very unsure by this. When it is like you suppose someone have done a good work.

Regards,

Detlef

Hello Detlef,
Yes, good work indeed. I attach the pictures of my own Singabarong kris, the kinatah work is not very fine and partly gone as seen on the detailed pictures and there is a welded patch on the paws.
The singa does not obviously seem to have been added later because the pamor lines appear quite continuous but I am not sure about it. Any comment?
Regards

[Jussi M.]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

I think we've all heard the jokes about the thirty year old gigolo who was mistaken for an old man of 70. He had had a hard life. The same can apply to keris.

Never mind the ancient pointy things - I´d like to hear more of this subject!