Atjeh silver-wire ornament — the technique by which the Atjeh silversmith applies bent pieces of silver wire and small silver balls (zilveren kogeltjes) to the surface of an object — is, in F. A. Wagner’s Sierkunst in Indonesië (1949), one of the four Atjeh metalwork specialities that Wagner singles out in his chapter “Metaalwerk” (Metalwork). The technique is described in the section “Edele metalen” (Precious metals), in the course of Wagner’s discussion of filigrain (filigrainwerk) and related silver-working traditions. The Atjeh technique is paired with the same technique in the Batak lands, and the two together constitute, in Wagner’s account, a regional Sumatran variant of the broader Indonesian silver-filigree tradition.
The passage in Wagner
In the section on filigrain, Wagner describes the standard filigree technique — silver drawn through holes of decreasing size in an iron draw-plate to produce fine silver threads, which are then worked into ornaments — and identifies the Padangse bovenlanden and Kendari (in south-eastern Celebes) as the principal filigree centres. He then turns to a related but distinct technique: “In Atjeh en ook in de Bataklanden brengt men bepaalde ornamenten aan door in de juiste vorm gebogen stukjes zilverdraad en zilveren kogeltjes op het te versieren voorwerp te solderen. Ook gecordeerd draad, dat door middel van vijlen het aanzien heeft van gedraaid koord, wordt in de ornamentatie toegepast. Hier wordt verwezen naar het messinggietwerk der Bataks, waar gelijksoortige versieringen in de gietvorm worden gemodelleerd.”
The Atjeh silver-wire technique is thus described as a three-element repertoire:
- In de juiste vorm gebogen stukjes zilverdraad — pieces of silver wire bent into the right shape. These are the linear elements of the ornament.
- Zilveren kogeltjes — small silver balls. These are the point-elements of the ornament.
- Gecordeerd draad — corded wire, given the appearance of twisted cord by filing. These are the textural elements of the ornament.
The three elements together — bent wire, silver balls, corded wire — are soldered onto the surface of the object to be decorated, building up an ornament that is, in effect, a surface application of pre-formed silver elements, rather than a filigree built up from continuous silver thread.
The technique and the Batak parallel
Wagner’s pairing of Atjeh and the Batak lands, in this passage, is significant: the two regions share the same silver-wire technique, and Wagner explicitly cross-refers to the Batak brass-casting tradition (messinggietwerk), in which “gelijksoortige versieringen in de gietvorm worden gemodelleerd” — similar decorations are modelled in the casting mould. The Batak brass-casters, in other words, produce in their casting moulds the same motifs that the Atjeh and Batak silversmiths produce by soldering bent wire and silver balls onto the surface. The two techniques — casting and soldering — are thus alternative ways of producing the same ornamental vocabulary, and the Atjeh silversmith’s technique is, in this sense, the silver-worker’s counterpart of the Batak brass-caster’s technique.
The Atjeh and Batak sharing of the silver-wire technique is, in turn, a marker of the broader Sumatran craft region. The same pairing — Atjeh and the Batak lands — appears in Wagner’s account of powder-horn carving and in his account of the pijlpunt-motief in ikat (the arrow-point motif is found in South Sumatra, the Batak lands, and Atjeh). The two regions, lying at the northern end of Sumatra, share, in Wagner’s catalogue, a cluster of craft techniques — silver-wire work, horn-carving, ikat arrow-point — that the rest of Sumatra does not share with them.
The technique and the Atjeh metalwork context
The Atjeh silver-wire ornament is one of the four Atjeh metalwork specialities that Wagner singles out in his chapter on metalwork:
- The Atjeh brass lamps — brass-cast (messing-gietwerk) lamps, “mooi gemodelleerd”
- The silver-wire ornament — bent silver-wire pieces, silver balls, and corded wire, soldered onto the surface
- 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. The silver-wire ornament is the ornament-speciality of the four — the piece in which the Atjeh metalworker’s decorative art is most fully displayed on the surface of the object. The technique’s pairing with the Batak brass-casting tradition — the same motifs, modelled in the mould rather than soldered on the surface — is, in turn, the recognition that the Atjeh silversmith and the Batak brass-caster share an ornamental vocabulary, even as their techniques differ.
Significance
The Atjeh silver-wire ornament is, in Wagner’s account, the principal example of Atjeh silver-work — and the only Atjeh technique he records in the section on filigrain and related silver-techniques. Its significance in the larger history of Atjehnese decorative art is that it shows the Atjeh silversmith working in a Sumatran tradition shared with the Batak lands, and working with a distinctive three-element repertoire — bent wire, silver balls, corded wire — that produces a surface ornament of points, lines, and textures. The sharing of the technique with the Batak lands is, in turn, a marker of the broader northern-Sumatran craft region, and the cross-reference to the Batak brass-casting tradition is a recognition that the same ornamental vocabulary can be produced by both casting and soldering — that the form of the ornament is, in some sense, independent of the technique by which it is made.
See Also
Source
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. 141.