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Subject:Re: Bronze sculpture
Posted By: Daniel Tue, Oct 11, 2005
Dear Eko,
this bronze figure is without doubt an image of a javanese wayang-theatre character. As it has a very funny and caricative head, I suppose it represents a so called �panakawan� � a servant of the nobility who acts as a jester.(As an Inonesian you surely know them). The three famous panakawan are Semar and his sons Petruk and Nalagareng. Semar is in many stories the adviser of the hero and has lot of magic power. He is even able to personify a god. My personal opinion is, that your sculpture is a Semar, maybe made to be a talisman.
For the following reason it is very difficult to determine the age of your bronze without a technical-scientific analyses:
At the end of the 13th century there already appeared very naturalistic wayang-figures on east-javanese temple-reliefs. Until nowadays they�ve stylistically developped to those �alien-like� forms we all know, which has possibly to do with the islamic prohibition of antropomorph representations. But the point is, that just the �panakawan� haven�t made any stylistic development since then. They still look like 700 years ago! So, stylistically it could be 14th or even 19th century, but with regard to the nice age-patina and the provenance I think it�s really old. Very interesting piece!
Daniel
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