INDONESIA, 20TH CENTURY

Details

A LARGE SLIT DRUM (KENTONGAN)
INDONESIA, 20TH CENTURY
Made of a hollowed trunk, with a large vertical slit, painted with lotus flower petals, a star and inscriptions in loose naskh script
86 7/8in. (220cm.) long, 18in. (46cm.) diam.

Exhibited

London, Every Object Tells a Story, 6 May – 26 June, 2015, No 55

Special notice

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Lot Essay

Our slit trunk drum owes its shape to earlier slit drums made of bronze. Such a drum, attributed to 13th century Java is kept at the Metropolitan Museum, New York (1987. 142. 30). Others, mostly attributed to various Indonesian islands and dated to the 13th and 14th centuries are published by Arlo Griffiths and Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer, Ancient Indonesian Ritual Utensils and their Inscriptions: Bells and Slitdrums, Arts Asiatiques, Vol. 69 (2014), pp. 129-150.
Modern kentongan appear to be mostly made of wood and used in official ceremonies, religious rituals and as means to attract the attention of crowds in public spaces.

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