Rajasthani; gouache on paper.
Six virtually identical paintings varying slightly in size depicting four bare breasted Balinese women surrounding a fifth operating a traditional loom ( a skill important to her desirability as a wife). This set is illustrative of a mode of routine production in which Balinese culture is transformed into a marketable commodity and a way of making a living in the developing cash economy of 20th century Indonesia. Dickinson accesssioned items 1985.8.41.11 and 12 are similar to the other six, but depict other idealized female activities: applying cosmetics, dressing and making flower ornaments.
Ink, color, and gold on bodhi leaves. An album of 12 Bodhi leaf paintings, beginning with two images of paired guardian figures (the four kings), followed by eight paintings of lohan, a picture of the white-robed Guanyin, and another guardian. Although this painting is in an elaborated mount, with high-quality brocade and a Qing dynasty imperial inscription attributing it the famed painter Ding Yunpeng (1547-1628), it is most likely a late 19th century product.
Ink, color, and gold on bodhi leaves. An album of 12 Bodhi leaf paintings, beginning with two images of paired guardian figures (the four kings), followed by eight paintings of lohan, a picture of the white-robed Guanyin, and another guardian. Although this painting is in an elaborated mount, with high-quality brocade and a Qing dynasty imperial inscription attributing it the famed painter Ding Yunpeng (1547-1628), it is most likely a late 19th century product.
Ink, color, and gold on bodhi leaves. An album of 12 Bodhi leaf paintings, beginning with two images of paired guardian figures (the four kings), followed by eight paintings of lohan, a picture of the white-robed Guanyin, and another guardian. Although this painting is in an elaborated mount, with high-quality brocade and a Qing dynasty imperial inscription attributing it the famed painter Ding Yunpeng (1547-1628), it is most likely a late 19th century product.
Lacquer, mother-of-pearl, and wood. This small inro, a pouch for carrying medicines, coins, and other valuables, takes the form of a rabbit, complete with feet sculpted on the bottom. The netsuke, or toggle for attaching the inro to the belt, is a tortoise whose head retracts inside its body. The pairing of the tortoise and the hare thus evokes the famous fable of Aesop, with which the Japanese would have been familiar in the late Edo and early Meiji periods.
Ink and color on paper.
Tudi gong. Chinese household deity. Image used in traditional Chinese household rituals.
Irridescent shades of red-brown and black give this bowl a beautiful luster. Raku ware.
Dedicated to the Goddess of Wisdom and Fertility. Lacquered wood.
Woman getting water at a spring. Batuan
Detail. Ellen Laing lists this name in her index to twentieth century painters, and refers to one other figure painting, Two Ladies in a Garden, dated 1926. Liangcai belonged to the Changhong Painting society, and more details on his life may be available. One can compare this to the same subject in another painting in the collection, attributed to the famous twentieth–century artist Jiang Daqian. Although the elements in the scene are exactly the same, Daqian creates a much more dynamic composition and moves the viewer into closer proximity to the figures in the boat. There is also much more energy in the brushwork. The stiffness in this example may be due to the fact that the artist is painting after a model, in this case, as the inscription says, the Ming artist Tang Yin (Liuju zhushi). The two works were done within a few years of each other, and both show early twentieth–century artists continuing traditional themes, but in very different ways.
Part of a set;These are small statues known as pretima or pratima in Bali that likely date to the mid-twentieth century. Such objects are preserved in small temple shrines and taken out in procession on festival occasions. Their specific identities are iconographically unmarked. They are known only through context, community memory and ritual use. On occasions of temple renovation a Brahmana priest sometimes ritually repaints pretima. The male figure appears to have been repainted in this way and the female figure has not. This explains its relatively crude painting by contrast to the more refined painting on the female figure, which would have been done by an artisan at the time of its production.
Painting on paper of Calonarang ceremony. Painted in the colorful naïve style associated with the village of Peliatan near Ubud.
Bronze work. Probably Burmese.
Ground pigment on cloth, mounted on brocade.
Ground pigment on cloth, mounted on brocade.
Ground pigment on cloth, mounted on brocade.
Bronze; 6-1/2 inches (H) x 2 (D) x 3 (W).
In shape of a peacock. It is painted in complex red and black patterns, somewhat after the Chinese manner. The bird however is a cross between a local chicken and an Indian peacock. It is unclear what this might have been made for, but it appears to be 75-100 years old or more.
Wood with silver inlay.
Represents a dramatic climax of the Calonarang ceremony. Although this is a powerful dance drama performed in temples during the middle of the night, it is depicted as an isolated scene on white background depicting a warrior attacking Rangda with a keris. This particular episode, abstracted here in painting, is similarly abstracted for dance performances staged for tourists, for whom such paintings would be offered for sale. It is painted in a refined style associated with the village of Ubud.
Gamelan player
