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Ikat from Tanimbar, Moluccas, Indonesia
 

359 Moluccas, Tanimbar


Bakan or tais (sarong)microscope



Locale: Yamdena, probably
Period: Circa 1930
Yarn: Cotton, hand-spun, medium
Technique: Warp ikat
Panels: 2
Size: 64 x 118 cm (2' 1" x 3' 10")   LW: 1.84
Weight: 460 g (16.2 oz), 305 g/m2 (1.00 oz/ft2)
Design: The main ikat motif is not common, and it does not occur in Van Vuuren's extensive catalogue of Tanimbarese motifs. Van Vuuren suggests seeing at it as a variant of the unnamed motif 136 on p. 183 of her invaluable 'Ikat from Tanimbar': Take out the middle and shove the left and right sections together. This indeed produces a close match. The stippling in the midfield was created, not with ikat but supplementary warp. Note the subtle asymmetry: of the 19 striped horizontal bands, ten are on the the bottom panel, nine on the top panel - probably produced by creating two identical panels with nine-and-and-a-half striped bands each and transfering half of one band to another panel.
Comment: This is one of those relatively rare cloths found across the eastern islands, that were made in a period when machine made yarn was a luxury. As is typical for cloths of this transitional period, the ikat work was done in the costly machine-made yarn, 'benang toko', all of the rest in hand-spun cotton.
Background: Chapters on Moluccas and Tanimbar.
Compare: 079 080 173 277 358
Sources: A related motif (a more elongated version of the main motif in this piece) is shown in Marianne van Vuuren, Ikat from Tanimbar, p. 183, motif 136, found on a sarong from Yamdena.
  
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