Logo Pusaka Collection
spacer ONLINE MUSEUM OF INDONESIAN IKAT TEXTILES   CURATOR: Dr PETER TEN HOOPEN  BROWSE FROM:  [RANDOM] [001] [050] [100] [150] [200] [250] [300] [350] [375]
 


right arrow    mouse over to magnifyright arrow

Ikat from East Sumba, Sumba, Indonesia

LEFT THE COLLECTION
 

016 Sumba, East Sumba


Hinggi (men's blanket)



Locale: Melolo
Period: Ca 1930
Panels: 2
Design: Hinggi in hondu wallah construction, i.e. without longitudinal replication in the constituent panels (twice a labour expensive as a standard hinggi). This is a hinggi made in hondu kihhil construction: top and bottom do not mirror one another. The central band is decorated with large spidery motifs that may well have been inspired by patola jilamprang motifs. The keys revealing this construction (see macro) are tiny: white spots in the red extensions of the jilamprang-like motifs on the central axis - but only on the cloth's bottom half, making clear that there was no replication along the central axis and that top and bottom were ikated individually. So instead of the common 8-fold replication this hinggi uses ony 4-fold replication..
Size: 102 x 223 cm (40.1 x 87.7 in)
Yarn: Cotton, hand-spun, fine
Comment: This is an historically important cloth as it is the first early 20th hinggi we ever encountered with an ikated kabakil - a technique which briefly came into vogue in the 1970s and early 1980s, and was widely considered a new invention and described as such in the literature (e.g. ten Hoopen 2018:273). The yellow dye of this lima varna, five colour, hinggi was applied by means of a ndatta brush. The yellow, reserved for royalty, has faded (as may be expected, nearly all yellow dyes being unstable), but it still shows up in micro-photography (see image #4) This cloth found a new home in a well-curated Indonesian collection.
Background: Additional information in chapters on Sumba and East Sumba.
Published: Noble Virtuosity: Hidden Asymmetry in Ikat from Sumba, 2024.
  
Add personal note
©Peter ten Hoopen, 2024
All rights reserved.