The Knaud

[Gustav]

While reeding van Duuren's booklet I was stunned how thin in fact the story of Charles Knaud's brothers grandson (who "was familiar with direct descendants existence, but not personally acquainted with them") is - not better and not worse then contemporary keris-selling-stories in Indonesia.

There surely are many questions about this object, because almost every physical part of it is a question. I would like to adress a small, seemingly unimportant feature.

On the Sogokan side of the bronze plaque there is depicted a carriage, drawn by two horses (?) and a single rider on a horse. My problem with this depiction is a following one: until now I don't know of any similar representation of carriages wheels in such spatial way in East-Javanese period art.

The same I can say about the representation of the dynamic motion of the horse with rider - I don't know the proper name of this motion, let's call it a leaping horse. It is something we can find in Middle-East/Indian/European art, perhaps in later Javanese manuscript illuminations or Wayang, but until now I haven't seen anything comparable from East Javanese period.

Also exactly the same spatial rendering of wheels of carriage (and the animals which are drawing it) can be find on Wayang Kulit figures, which date back to 19th century.

I also would like to address a section in van Duuren's conclusion I have a problem with. It defends authenticity of the object and he writes:

"Moreover, do so at a time when Javanese antiquities were only of value to a small number of ethnological museums and an extremely small circle of experts. After all, a commercial market for collectors, antique dealers and auctions where many Asian antiquities are handled - and where an Indo-Javanese keris presented as genuine would not attract a high price if nobody had realized it was a fake - did not exist."

In the collection of Raffles there are 132 metal figurines. Most of them are from Middle-/East-Javanese period, but over 20 are datable of end of 1700ties/beginning of 1800ties. They are very crude forgeries of art from earlier periods, collected in 1811-1816. That means that already at that time Javanese must have seen here a possibility of profit and started to make these again after a gap of about 300 years. How much more advanced the "art" could have been in 1880ties! Let's remember - the Knaud's keris entered the reality as a submission to "Exhibition of Products of Some Brances of Industry and Art", was given the second prize, and apparently was part of a collection, which "has never been described anywhere", not the best provenance we can think of.

I think, there is a quite high percent of possibility the Knaud's Keris is a hoax, and this percent did not become smaller with me after reading the booklet. On the other side, I must accept, that I actually know almost nothing. I would like to make an illustration of that feeling with another keris, the state heirloom of Kutai Kartanagara. The tradition says, it comes from time of Majapahit, it is depicted as drawing in Schmeltz's article from 1890. Regrettably this is the only photograph of it I could find - enjoy!

[Gustav]

The possible possible model for Knaud's keris?

[A. G. Maisey]

Yes Gustav, precisely so.

This statue is located in the museum at Trowulan, the site of the capital of Majapahit. I visited this museum and took a number of photographs of this statue on 3rd. April 2018. This photo you have posted is exactly the same as one of my photos, but I cannot recall posting that photo to this forum.

That depression in the blade edge was caused by damage it is not original to the statue. The info board identifies this statue as either:- Garuda, or Minak Jinggo, or Maha Kala, or Bairawa. In other words they're not too sure exactly who it is supposed to be.

So, exactly when was that statue discovered and made available for public viewing?

This would have been before the Trowulan Museum existed because the museum was built in 1924, and Charles Knaud had the keris in his possession long before this.

When we know more about the statue, then we have the possibility of knowing more about when the Knaud keris was actually produced.

When I photographed the statue I made no connection between it & The Knaud, it was only later when I was looking at my photos of it that it dawned on me that I was looking at the inspiration for the Knaud Keris.

However, even without that gift of the statue with its damaged keris, there are far too many abberations present in The Knaud for it to be accepted as a product of the Majapahit era.

ADDITION

Gustav, I read your post #17 before your Post #16, but now I have looked at your #16.

You have reached the same conclusions about The Knaud that I reached about 40 years ago, but was unable to substantiate.

I reached my conclusions after I saw recently produced "Majapahit" artefacts that were being purchased in Solo by an American who lived in Solo and made his living by sending these brand new relics of past times to dealers and auction houses in USA & Europe. Then I learnt how present day forgers in Jawa did not produce forgeries for the open market, but already had the victim in mind and were in the process of priming him for the Big Hit while the forged object was being prepared. A particularly well known keris and art collector who was internationally famous as an authority on Javanese art was a favourite target of the Shonky Brotherhood.

Recognised reference books that deal with Javanese art contain photos of blatant fakes, the same is true of museum exhibits, and items in private collections. We are not talking about little money here, we are talking about very, very big money. This is still going on, right now, as I am writing this.

The reason I began to deal keris in the first place was because it was very, very obvious that in Indonesia the knowledge was held by the dealers --- as much is said in Centhini, that was 200 years ago. To truly understand any antiques or antiquities in Jawa & Bali one needs to become a dealer, nobody has the slightest possibility of learning much at all by standing outside and looking in through a window.

[A. G. Maisey]

Thank you for your comments Bob.

Gustav cut through what I had hoped was going to be a few pages of group investigation, keeping interested parties busy thinking through propositions and coming to conclusions for a couple of weeks, but what he has posted is absolutely correct.

It still might be interesting to look at all the other irregularities with The Knaud, but I believe we can now see that we have all been just a little bit misled for the last 100 years or so.

Here is a link to a very good colour photo of both sides of The Knaud.

https://www.artoftheancestors.com/bl...vid-van-duuren

The overlay is bronze that is permanently fixed, the dark patches on the bronze are copper repairs. We do not know at this point how that overlay was fixed to the iron body, it might have been made and then soldered in place, or it might have been carved into the overlay of bronze at the time when this object was produced.

Anything that we believe we can deduce from looking at photos of this Knaud keris must be measured by the understanding that we are almost certainly looking at a post Majapahit production, probably post Mojo by a few hundred years or so.

But one thing that does come out of this close look at The Knaud is that David Van Duuren's book is now a publication that I believe every truly serious student of the keris needs in his book case, together with notes on tipped in half pages.

In my opinion, Mr. Van Duuren's book has now become just as essential as all the other classic keris publications.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

This statue is located in the museum at Trowulan, the site of the capital of Majapahit. I visited this museum and took a number of photographs of this statue on 3rd. April 2018. This photo you have posted is exactly the same as one of my photos, but I cannot recall posting that photo to this forum.

Just for your peace of mind: You did post pics & close-ups of this statue here a while back.

We did discuss the broken edge of the blade back then. I did not made the connection that this might very well be the basis for the Knaud keris - it's a pretty convincing working hypothesis. Iconic and unique pieces/representations can be traps for forgers, especially when working from published pictures. If they only had stayed more true to the actual decor on the blade, the piece would have raised much fewer eyebrows!

Regards,
Kai

[kai]

Hello Gustav,

Thanks for your insightful postings!

I would like to make an illustration of that feeling with another keris, the state heirloom of Kutai Kartanagara. The tradition says, it comes from time of Majapahit, it is depicted as drawing in Schmeltz's article from 1890.

It's pretty clear that keris like these would be referred to as Mojo.

As you already inferred, it's obvious that quite a few of these keris buda (and related pieces) are of much later manufacture though.

Thanks for posting the pic - I had not seen any pic of this piece and it's a valuable addition to the artwork in Schmeltz!

Regards,
Kai

[A. G. Maisey]

Thanks for that Kai.

I did a quick search but I could not find where I'd posted it.

As I wrote in my previous post I did not really make a connection when I saw the statue, I was too busy dodging the photo police, it was only much later that I made the connection.

Yes, true that if the conman had made something that stayed true to type The Knaud would probably have been accepted as real, but if you want to sell something for big duit to an art collector, it helps if what you are presenting is a dated one off, and way, way back the internet was not around. I most sincerely doubt that even the smartest shonk could pull off something like The Knaud today.

But they do still pull off some pretty incredible coups. I recently saw evidence of what I would guess was a multi-million dollar bit of shonkery.

How these dogs sleep at night is beyond my understanding.

[A. G. Maisey]

I am bringing this thread out of hiding so that I do not need to respond to several private emails, the questions in those emails were all similar, and all from people who are planning a visit to Jawa & Bali.

A reading of this thread will, I believe, be of considerable assistance to those people. It might even help to save them some folding money too.

[Montino Bourbon]

it might be out of line, but I’d love to know what you saw recently… That was a multimillion dollar bit of ‘shonkery’.

[A. G. Maisey]

Montino, I visit Indonesia regularly, the usual is at least once each year and for two or three months. These days I spend about equal time in Jawa & Bali, and I left the tourist circuit many, many years ago.

I'd like to keep on doing this.

In fact, in the times when I am not in Indonesia I'd like to continue in my present undisturbed lifestyle.

There are some things that are best left unsaid.

[Montino Bourbon]

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan said: “ truth is not something to be thrown around, like dung, but must be used sparingly.“ So I understand what you’re saying.