Bali/Lombok keris from ebay

[Gustav]

Dear All,

this just ended on ebay, described as pre-1800 keris. As I have seen very small amount of information about Bali/Lombok kerisses, I would like to use the opportunity to learn about things, which are really interesting me.

I have a couple of very incautious questions:

1) The first is about this creation instead of uwer; I have seen once something similar (picture below); is it an older form? Is it a form?

2) The shape of the blade - it seems to be pretty narrow; no jenggot on kembang kacang, which I have seen in most pictures of kerisses with this dapur; the kembang kacang is a little bit thicker at the end as in the middle - is there a possibility, the blade has been reshaped, or it is an older form of this dapur?

3) Is this an old Bali staining?

(I apologise for my English and probably very naive questions)

[David]

Gustav, i was watching this auction as well. I don't think i can answer all your questions, but i'll tackle a few.
To my eyes this looks like a fairly nice old Bali or Lombok keris. The narrowness of the blade does not seem that unusual to me. I have a couple of Balis with narrow blades such as this. I don't think the bladec has been re-shaped. I have seen a great number of earlier Bali blades without jenggot. It does look like it probably has what remains of an old Bali stain, but it is fairly worn out and originally the blade would have been darker and more contrasty.
I am not sure about the uwer. I wasn't even sure that this was a separate piece or just part of the hilt. The hilt form is somewhat unusal, but very beautiful and well executed IMHO.
I am sure there will be other opinions.

[A. G. Maisey]

From what I can see in the photo this keris looks like an original.

It is not at all unusual in both Bali and Jawa for an old blade to have its edges cleaned up. With age, edges of a blade can become ragged, and it is normal practice to regularise these ragged edges. This is what a m'ranggi is paid to do. Its his job to maintain blades in the best possible condition.

Western collectors very often seem to think that any keris which is not in an untouched condition is something that has been "fiddled with", and is thus undesirable. Nothing could be further from the truth. A keris is a living entity and requires maintenance. A keris is not something that is frozen in time and intended to be locked in a glass case in a museum and looked at.

The edges of this blade may have been cleaned up --- or they may not have been. If the job has been well done, it is very difficult to know for certain, and in any case, from my perspective, it is totally irrelevant. This blade looks good now, and that's the important thing.

The hilt is an unusual form, I have a similar one that is quite small.

The the hilt ring (wewer, uwer) may be original, or may not be. I have seen a lot of different things used as hilt rings, both in Bali, and in western societies.
It is not the type of hilt ring that we usually encounter.

Impossible to comment on the stain from a photo.

As for the age of pre-1800, unless there is a provenance that can substantiate that, I'd take it with a grain of salt.

[Gustav]

David, Alan, thank you very much!

One more question: is there a small possibility to determinate the time period or an certain empu for Bali/Lombok regarding the greneng or some other ricikan features?

(probably is the question, is there any evidence for something like pakem in Bali/Lombok court culture?)

[A. G. Maisey]

In my opinion, probably not.

There is very little information available on Bali keris. Perhaps the best, easily available text is "Keris di Lombok" by Ir.H. Lalu Djelenga, and that has a Lombok slant, although it seems that much of what is said in it can be also applied to Bali.

Going back about 25 years I put a lot of time into trying to get information on Balinese keris, but I had almost no success. Admittedly, I lacked the connections I had in Jawa, but I did have a relative who was married into one of the royal families, and through that connection I got a couple of introductions to people whom one would have thought would have had some knowledge, but regretably there was very little there.

I was at that time given a photocopy of an old text on keris, but I was never able to find anybody who could read it.

[Tatyana Dianova]

I am a great fan of Balinese Keris and I always look for more information about it. I have "Keris di Lombok" book, unfortunately I cannot read it and can only look through the pictures. The general question that always comes to my mind during viewing: are all the blades and dresses in this book really old? The dresses there look often like a modern work from Lombok.

[Gustav]

Alan, thank You for Your very interesting response.

May I ask, was impossible to read it because of the language itself, or because of terminology? I can imagine, You have tryed 25 years ago all possible, and with every year there are less and less people with knowledge about old culture.

(I have heard, the older dalangs are still able to read the ancient language. But of course, it is a very naive thought.)

Tatyana, I think the same about the dresses. But sometimes it seems to me, there is an older stile, the ornamental lines are smaller and somehow very graceful curved. One of such keris is on de Vries catalogue, fairly in the middle with the black gandar and kekandikan. (Of course it is even not an opinion.)

[Jussi M.]

Beautiful keris Gustav. Do you have pics of the sheath?

Thanks,

J

[Gustav]

Hello Jussi!

there was no sheath, unfortunately.

But if it would be as enigmatic in the way the connexion between uwer and the hilt is ... probably better so