The shadow and rod puppets of Javan theater, cut from leather or carved from wood, used to perform the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Javanese stories with a gamelan orchestra.

Are these ethnographic prints respectful?

They are records of how 18th and 19th century Europeans saw the peoples of the islands, with the accuracy and the prejudice of their time. The best, such as Temminck's, were drawn from life and objects.

Collection

Peoples and Costume

The peoples of the islands as 18th and 19th century engravers saw them: Van Pers's Javanese scenes of about 1850, Temminck's plates of Timor, Borneo and Papua, Wahlen's costume atlas, wayang puppets, and the weapons and textiles of the archipelago.

11 sheets

By islandJava 61 Sumatra 9 Borneo 11 Celebes 9 Moluccas 11 Lesser Sunda 35 New Guinea 15

By periodThe spice race 5 The Company 26 Raffles to the Cultivation System 70 Netherlands Indies 74

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