17 Island Southeast Asian Masterworks in Museum Fünf Kontinente
17 Island Southeast Asian Masterworks in Museum Fünf Kontinente
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
This month Art of the Ancestors highlights the holdings of another venerable museum for our readership. Formerly known as the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich boasts Germany's first ethnological museum. Founded in 1862, today the renamed Museum Fünf Kontinente, or Museum of Five Continents, is a contemporary institution where humanity's cultural memory is being preserved, restored, and expanded through exemplary work based on up-to-date research practices, adaptation to an ever-changing social context, and expert, careful curation.
As the name "Five Continents" implies, the museum houses important collections reflecting everyday cultural values and the signposts from past civilizations that span Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. It is Germany's second-largest museum stewarding 160,000 objects of global material culture from outside of Europe. The Oceanic and Indonesian collections are outstanding, containing many iconic early collected items of high historical importance and artistic mastery. With regard to the Indonesian collection, "some of the earliest objects, Buddhist and Hindu stone sculptures and bronze sculptures from Java (7th-9th centuries AD), come from the collections of the Bavarian royal house of Wittelsbach. Extensive collections of textiles, weapons, shadow play figures, ceremonial and everyday objects from Indonesia were given to the museum by Chevalier de Grez 1876, Max Buchner 1890, Kleiweg de Zwaan 1913, Albert Grubauer 1920, Paul Wirz 1925-27 or WOJ Nieuwenkamp 1928."
It is a great pleasure to begin to feature a small number of the Five Continent's more than 1,300 Indonesian items, just as the museum's collections are beginning to appear online and be digitally available to a worldwide audience. This introduction and presentation are anchored by a uniquely styled woman's wooden epaku or ceremonial headdress from Enggano that was collected in 1876. Its looming visage reminds us of just how little material culture really has survived the ravages of time from traditional peoples and just how important it is that museums continue to preserve our communal human legacies.
An absolutely superb small Dayak shield from Western Sarawak (Sebuyah) of wood, wicker, and rattan, mobile and lightweight, is centered by the rare depiction of a human head. The quality of construction of older artworks within the Indonesia holdings, whether it's the fine wooden Atoni statue supporting a coconut cup, or a lovely Timorese ladle handle intricately carved from buffalo horn (1918), or a Dayak barkcloth jacket decorated with a delicate leaf or foliate pattern collected in 1936, to a Dayak war jacket from Western Borneo (before 1908) that exhibits a striking mix of materials; liana fiber, pigment, wood, cotton, glass buttons and down feathers are remarkable. All of the component parts tastefully work together and derive from a time, as we like to say 'when the world was young,' where every step or phase of construction of a fine personal or communal item was fraught with meaning, artistry, and concentration.
Casting our gaze from West to East, there are three Batak items and three items from the Moluccas to round out this initial presentation. The museum's bullet holder was collected before 1893. It is also accompanied by a well-carved Datu's medicine horn or naga morsarang, along with a vigorously splayed-legged ancestor figure collected before 1905. The Museum Fünf Kontinente's Indonesian collection also contains a rich array of works from Nusa Tenggara Timur as well as the Moluccas or Spice Islands. Included here is a fine Tanimbar altar from Upolero collected by Wilhelm Müller-Wismar before 1913, along with an excellent and complete outdoor post altar and the close-up detail of a handsome house figure collected before 1922.
In all, there is much to explore and savor in these images. We look forward in anticipation to selectively featuring many items from the Five Continents' collections as they become available online. In the meantime, a visit to Munich's fine array of museums is always a pleasure and highly recommended. A day spent at the Museum Fünf Kontinente will be a rewarding one in addition to the city's endless charm.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
1
Ornament from Woman's Ceremonial Hat (Epaku)
Enggano
Collected before 1876
Inv. # Gr-525
2
Wicker Dayak Shield
Western Sarawak (Sebuyah), Borneo
19th century
Inv. # Gr-175
3
Ceremonial Statue with Receptacle Cup
Atoni peoples
Timor
Collected before 1918
Inv. # 28-30-38
4
Ceremonial Buffalo Horn Ladle Handle
Atoni peoples
Timor
Collected before 1918
Inv. # 28-30-92
5
Ceremonial Barkcloth Vest
Apo Kayan peoples
Kalimantan, Borneo
Collected before 1936
Inv. # W-12
6
Warrior's Jacket
Malawi, Barito, Western Kalimantan
Collected before 1908
Inv. # 08-171
7
Sword (Parang Pandat) with Tin Inlaid Scabbard
Dayak
West Kalimantan, Borneo
Collected before 1876
Inv. # Gr-114
8
Fine Ceremonial Mask
Apo Kayan peoples
Kalimantan, Borneo
Collected before 1936
Inv # W-24
9
Apo Kayan Mask
Central Kalimantan, Borneo
Collected at Long Peleban before 1936
Inv. # W-29
10
House Door
Dayak
Central-North Kalimantan, Borneo
Collected before 1910
Inv. # 10-926
11
Cult Figure (Adu Tuhanadu)
South Nias
Collected before 1929
Inv. # 30-25-6
12
Musket Ball Container
Toba Batak
North Sumatra
Collected before 1893
Inv. # 93-247
13
Medicine Horn (Naga Morsarang)
Toba Batak
North Sumatra
Late 19th century
Inv. # 73-17-1
14
Ancestor Figure
Toba Batak
North Sumatra
Collected before 1905
Inv. # 05-225
15
Ancestral Altar (Tavu)
Upolero, Tanimbar, Maluku
Collected by Wilhelm Müller-Wismar before 1913
Inv. # 13-83-61
16
Complete Outdoor Post Shrine
Southern Maluku
Collected before 1922
Inv. # 13-83-65
17
Upper Torso of a Ceremonial Figure
Leti peoples
Maluku
19th century
Inv. # 22-23-14.
Art of the Ancestors extends a special thank you to Dr. Michaela Appel, Head of Departments for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia at Museum Fünf Kontinente.
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of Museum Fünf Kontinente.
© Museum Fünf Kontinente