Gold Leaf Sheath and hilt

[David]

I am not sure if Sunggingan would apply here, but others might know better.
Gold leaf has often been applied when creating Sunggingan dress, but i have always considered the term to apply to painted figures and designs, not a complete covering with gold leaf or paint as this dress displays. The word means "paintings" i believe, or something to that effect.
I don't image that this "marbled" effect, as you referred to it, was the original intention. This is most probably due to wear and age.
Looking forward to seeing the blade.

[milandro]

I think I have seen somewhere a similar sarong with the same effect (why put the red underneath if you didn’t want it to show it through the cracks of the gold leaf? If that wasn’t intentional they may as well left just some whitewash background primer ) but the color combination was gold and green.

I can’t remember where I have seen this though. It may have been at the home of one of the several “ serial collectors “ that I have been privileged with visiting since I started my interest for the Keris.

One particular gentleman whom resides in Arnhem by the one of the borders with Germany had the most impressive collection and it may have been his place. Unfortunately I could only stay 15 minutes since I had a previous engagement .

I am afraid the blade is not really impressive neither for size nor for design or maybe even pamor (which I will see only at a later stage)

[A. G. Maisey]

When we get this gold leaf overlay it is called "prada" (pron, "prodo").

Gilded work is correctly called "pradan", but it is commonly called just "prada", which means "gold leaf".

I have never seen quite this effect, usually it will be combined in small amounts with sunggingan work. We often find prada work on wall plaques (blawong) & keris stands (ploncon, jagrak).

[milandro]

happy to have something not all that common and had the privilege to show it here.

[Battara]

Certainly easy to apply but hard to protect from wear.

[Rick]

I'd like to see more pictures. If it's really wear and age or intentional, it seems quite randomly placed.
Could there be any significance in the colors and which one covers the other?

[milandro]

While I think that the gilding was never covering the entire sarong, I also believe that there are clear wear signs ( due for example being worn in a belt or kept in a Ploncon ), as for which color in on top of which it is clear that the gilding is above the orange, brick-color , undercoat. The Hilt shows also signs of some Black sign of some sort on both face but It is undecipherable.

As for the orange color under the guilding, my wife ( which received a formal art training and studied art history although not specialized in the arts from the east) said that it is not infrequent to guild over an undercoat red or orange because the undercoat tends to influence the hue of the gold leaf, so to show it as “ warmer”

I’ve acquired this keris from a couple whom used to reside in Indonesia since the ’70 their home was chockablock with Items from the archipelago with many of the pieces being certainly antiques, they were not dealer or any such thing, but retired people moving to a smaller house and selling part ( I saw the boxes where the gentleman showed me items not for sale which he was taking with him).

I am showing this to you, certainly not “ off”, for the sole purpose of learning and discussing. Whichever the findings or opinions I will take on board but I am very happy with this piece the way it is .