Atjeh brass lamps — the brass-cast (messing-gietwerk) lamps of Atjeh — are the principal Atjeh product of the brass-casting tradition that F. A. Wagner records in his chapter “Metaalwerk” (Metalwork) of *Sierkunst in Indonesië* (1949), and that Prof. T. J. Bezemer’s *Indonesische Kunstnijverheid* (1933) also documents in plate 174 as standing brass lamps from Northern and Central Sumatra. Wagner describes the Atjeh brass lamps as “mooi gemodelleerd” (beautifully modelled) — a term that emphasises the three-dimensional form of the lamps rather than their surface decoration — and they are placed alongside the Batak and Padangse bovenlanden brass-work as the principal Sumatran traditions of messing-gietwerk.
The passage in Wagner (1949)
After describing the à-cire-perdue (lost-wax) brass-casting technique, and after surveying the Batak brass-casting tradition (with its tali pioe, poerpoeroer, goendoek, singa, boraspati, and hoeting motifs) and the Padangse bovenlanden tradition (with its Hindoo-influenced relief ornament and its plaatgietwerk), Wagner turns to the other brass-casting regions: “Van de andere gebieden waar messing-gietwerk wordt vervaardigd, wordt hier alleen Atjeh genoemd, waar mooi gemodelleerde lampen voorkomen en de streken om het Matana-meer, waar de toegepaste versieringen grote overeenkomst vertonen met die, welke men bij de Toba-Bataks vindt.”
The Atjeh brass lamps are thus singled out for their modelling — “mooi gemodelleerd” — a term that emphasises the three-dimensional form of the lamps rather than their surface decoration. The lamps are, in Wagner’s account, the Atjeh contribution to the brass-casting tradition of the archipelago; the other region he names in the same sentence — the country around Lake Matana (in Central Sulawesi) — is mentioned only for the resemblance of its decoration to that of the Toba-Bataks. The Atjeh lamps, by contrast, are mentioned for their own quality: they are “mooi gemodelleerd,” and they need no comparison to recommend them.
The plate in Bezemer (1933)
Plate 174 of the Bezemer atlas (p. 125) is captioned, in the four-language convention of the atlas, as follows:
- Dutch: Staande koperen lampen uit Noord- en Midden-Sumatra. — “Standing brass lamps from Northern and Central Sumatra.”
- English: Brass standing Lamps. Northern and Central Sumatra.
- French: Lampes statives de laiton. Sumatra septentrional et central. — “Standing lamps of brass. Northern and central Sumatra.”
- German: Kupferne stehende Lampen. Nord- und Mittel-Sumatra. — “Copper standing lamps. Northern and central Sumatra.”
Because Atjeh was the principal residency of Noord-Sumatra (Northern Sumatra) in the Dutch colonial administrative geography, the standing brass lamps of plate 174 — though captioned as from Northern and Central Sumatra — must include Atjeh examples, and the plate is the principal Dutch photographic documentation of the Atjeh-region brass-lamp tradition alongside the Wagner 1949 account. The use of a regional designation rather than a single locality is a feature of plates that document a regional craft tradition with multiple local centres: the Atjeh brass-lamp tradition was, in 1933, a regional tradition rather than a single-locality tradition, and the regional caption reflects this.
The Verzameling / Collection / Sammlung appendix to the Bezemer atlas (pp. 169–170) records that plate 174 is among the plates whose photographs were supplied by the ‘s Rijks Ethn. Museum at Leiden — the National Ethnographic Museum of the Netherlands. The standing brass lamps were therefore part of the Leiden museum’s Sumatran collection in 1933.
The lamps and the brass-casting tradition
The brass-casting tradition that Wagner describes is the à-cire-perdue tradition — the lost-wax technique, in which a wax model is built up, encased in clay, melted out, and replaced by molten brass. The technique is, Wagner notes, the same as that used “ten tijde der Hindoe-overheersing” (in the time of the Hindu rule) for bronze casting, and it is “ook nu nog de werkwijze voor het gieten in messing” (still today the working method for brass casting). The Atjeh brass lamps are thus products of the same ancient technique that, in the Hindu period, produced the bronze sculptures of Java, and that, in Wagner’s day, produced the brass-work of the Batak lands, the Padangse bovenlanden, Atjeh, and the country around Lake Matana.
The Atjeh brass lamps, in this tradition, are distinguished by their modelling — the three-dimensional form of the lamp, which Wagner praises as “mooi gemodelleerd.” The lamps are not, in Wagner’s account, distinguished by their surface decoration: he does not describe any surface ornament on the Atjeh lamps, in contrast to his detailed description of the Batak tali pioe and singa motifs. The Atjeh lamps are thus an example of brass-casting in which the form is the principal carrier of the decoration — the lamp is its own ornament, and the modeller’s art is the principal art.
The lamps in the Atjeh metalwork context
The Atjeh brass lamps are one of the four Atjeh metalwork specialities that Wagner singles out in his chapter on metalwork:
- The brass lamps (messing-gietwerk) — “mooi gemodelleerd”
- The Atjeh silver-wire ornament — bent silver-wire pieces and silver balls soldered onto the object
- The heetsen of gold — the heat-reddening of gold
- The tjawardi — the enamelling technique, “vrijwel alleen in Atjeh”
Together, the four specialities place Atjeh among the principal metalworking regions of the archipelago, and they show the Atjeh metalworker as a master of form (the brass lamps), of ornament (the silver-wire work), and of colour (the heetsen red and the tjawardi enamel). The brass lamps are the form-masterpiece of the four — the piece in which the Atjeh metalworker’s art is most fully displayed in three dimensions. The Bezemer plate 174 documents the same tradition photographically, and the combined Wagner-and-Bezemer documentation makes the Atjeh brass-lamp tradition the best-documented single Atjeh metalwork speciality in the late colonial Dutch scholarship.
Significance
The Atjeh brass lamps are, in the combined Wagner-and-Bezemer documentation, the principal example of Atjeh brass-casting — and the only Atjeh object Wagner records in the messing-gietwerk section. Their significance in the larger history of Atjehnese decorative art is that they show the Atjeh metalworker as a master of three-dimensional form, working in the same lost-wax tradition that, in the Hindu period, produced the bronzes of Java. The lamps’ “mooi gemodelleerd” quality — their beautiful modelling — is, in turn, the metalwork counterpart of the anker-motief’s rounded geometry in weaving: both are expressions of the Atjeh craftsman’s taste for form that is rounded, modelled, and complete in itself, rather than form that is angular, flat, or imposed. The Bezemer plate of 1933 preserves the photographic record of the same tradition sixteen years before Wagner’s text account, and the two sources together make the Atjeh brass-lamp tradition the best-documented Atjeh metalwork speciality of the late colonial period.
See Also
- Indonesische Kunstnijverheid (Bezemer 1933)
- Sierkunst in Indonesië
- T. J. Bezemer
- Cire perdue
- Atjeh silver-wire ornament
- Heetsen
- Tjawardi
- Atjeh sirih-schotel
- Filigraanwerk (Padangsche Bovenlanden)
- Noord-Sumatra
- Padangsche Bovenlanden
- Toba-Bataklanden
- Sumatra
- Acheh
- Leiden
- 1933
- 1949
Sources
Sierkunst in Indonesië, by F. A. Wagner, Insulinde — Serie Handleidingen voor de Kennis van Indonesië, Vol. VI (Groningen, Batavia: J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatschappij N.V., 1949), p. 132 (on the Atjeh brass lamps as “mooi gemodelleerd”).
Indonesische Kunstnijverheid. Platen-Atlas met Inleiding van Prof. T. J. Bezemer (‘s-Gravenhage: N.V. tot Exploitatie van het Maandblad “Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw”; ten Hagen’s Drukkerij en Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V., 15 October 1933), plate 174 (p. 125, standing brass lamps from Noord- en Midden-Sumatra, including Atjeh) and Verzameling appendix (p. 170, citing the Rijks Ethnographisch Museum, Leiden, as the lender). Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, LS 5411.