Javanese Indonesian Brass Kendi

Engraved Brass Kendi

East Java, Indonesia

circa 1920

height: 31cm, width: 24cm, weight: 2,710g

This relatively rare and monumental type of cast brass kendi or indigenous drinking vessel is from East Java, Indonesia. It stands on a flared foot, and has a flattened, round cushion-shaped body that has been cast with ten fins at equidistant spaces. The fins serve to increase the surface area of vessel perhaps to aid with cooling.

Two spouts rise from the top of the base. These are cylindrical and are joined near their tops with a triangular ‘bridge’. One is fitted with a hinged cover and through which water is poured into the vessel. The other has a mouth piece from which water is drunk.

The surface of the kendi is entirely covered with very fine and intricate scrolling tendrils, bamboo shoot (puncuk rebang) motifs, Chinese-influenced key-fret patterns, scrolling fern frond motifs, and six long-nosed characters from the Javanese wayang (shadow puppet) – all against a very fine tooled background. The engraving work is especially fine and among the finest we have seen on this type of brassware.

Jasper & Pirngadie (1930, p. 95-6) illustrate three variants all of which they attribute to the East Java city of Surabaya. One of the Jasper & Pirngadi examples is decorated with similar wayang character motifs as this example.

These examples all appear to date to the early twentieth century but the forms appears to pre-date that. A three-spouted kendi of similar form but lacking cooling fins, made of sheet gold and ascribed to the court of Bangakalan on the island of Madura is in the collection of the National Museum in Jakarta.

We have had only one other kendi of this type in the past but this example was without wayang motifs and had five rather than ten fins. This example was sold in 2005 to the Islamic Arts Museum of Malaysia.

The present kendi is in excellent condition.

References

Jasper, J.E. & Pirngadie, De Inlandsche Kunstnijverheid in Nederlandsch Indie V: de Bewerking van Niet-Edele Metalen, 1930 (reprinted 2009 by Sidestone Press, Leiden).

Kartik, K., ‘The gold collection in the Jakarta National Museum’,  Arts of Asia, November-December 1995.

Provenance

US art market

Inventory no.: 1779

SOLD