Filigraanwerk (Padangsche Bovenlanden) — the filigree work of the Padangsche Bovenlanden, the highlands of Padang in west-central Sumatra — is the Sumatran silversmithing technique that Prof. T. J. Bezemer’s 1933 plate-atlas *Indonesische Kunstnijverheid* identifies as the regional Sumatran alternative to the Atjeh goldsmiths’ *soeasa* wrapping technique. The Padangsche Bovenlanden are, in Bezemer’s account, the principal Sumatran centre of filigree — “Een geliefkoosd procédé voor zilverwerk is het filigraanwerk, waarvoor in het bijzonder de Padangsche Bovenlanden bekend zijn” — “A favourite process for silverwork is the filigree work, for which the Padangsche Bovenlanden are particularly known.” The juxtaposition of the Padang filigree and the Atjeh wrapping in the same section of the Bezemer atlas’s Inleiding (§ H, p. 13) makes them the two regional Sumatran variants of the broader Indonesian precious-metalwork tradition, and the contrast between them is the technical frame within which the Atjeh soeasa technique is defined.
The technique
The filigree technique, as described by Bezemer, involves the drawing of metal wire, the cutting of the wire to length, the bending of the wire into the desired figure, and the soldering of the bent-wire figure to a base. The Bezemer atlas (p. 13) describes the technique as follows: “Men trekt eerst de metaaldraden zoo dun mogelijk, knipt ze daarna op de vereischte lengte, buigt ze in den goeden vorm en rangschikt ze volgens het gewenschte figuur, waarna het geheel met borax en zilver en kopersoldeersel wordt vast gesoldeerd” — “One first draws the metal wires as thin as possible, then cuts them to the required length, bends them into the right shape, and arranges them according to the desired figure, after which the whole is soldered fast with borax and silver-and-copper solder.”
The technique therefore requires four distinct skills: wire-drawing (the production of fine silver wire by drawing the metal through successively smaller holes in a draw-plate), wire-bending (the shaping of the wire into the figured pattern), wire-arrangement (the assembly of the bent-wire elements into the overall design), and soldering (the bonding of the wire elements to each other and to the base, using borax as a flux and a silver-copper alloy as the solder). The four skills are typically the specialism of a single silversmith, who produces a finished filigree ornament from raw silver through the complete sequence of operations.
The Padangsche Bovenlanden as the Sumatran centre
The Padangsche Bovenlanden — the highlands of Padang, in west-central Sumatra — are the principal Sumatran centre of filigree work in the late colonial period. The region is the heartland of the Menangkabau people, and the filigree technique is one of the characteristic Minangkabau crafts. The Padangsche Bovenlanden filigree tradition is documented extensively in the Bezemer atlas: the silver boxes for tobacco and chalk (tabaks- en kalkdoosjes) of plates 182a, 182b, 182c-e, 182f (pp. 129–131), the silver belt-buckles (gordelplaten) of plate 183 (p. 131), the brass bowls (kommen) of plate 151 (p. 114), the brass bowls with ornament of plate 152 (p. 115), the ornaments on bowls of plate 153 (p. 116), the brass bowls of plates 154 and 155 (p. 116), the brass water-pitchers (gēndi’s) of plates 156/157 (p. 117), the brass kettles of plate 159 (p. 117), the bronze bowls of plates 158 and 166 (pp. 117, 121), the brass boxes for sirih of plate 160 (p. 118), the lid of a brass betel-box of plate 161 (p. 119), the brass model of a house of plate 162 (p. 119), the brass model of a Minangkabau house of plate 163 (p. 120), the brass bowl on foot of plate 164 (p. 121), and the brass chalk-box of plate 167 (p. 121) are all from the Padangsche Bovenlanden. The Padangsche Bovenlanden are, in the Bezemer atlas, the most heavily documented Sumatran centre of metalwork — far more heavily documented than Atjeh.
Contrast with the Atjeh soeasa technique
The contrast between the Padangsche Bovenlanden filigree and the Atjeh soeasa wrapping technique is the principal substantive point of the Atjeh passage in the Bezemer atlas’s § H. The two techniques are alternative ways of producing precious-metal ornaments in Sumatra: the Padang smiths drew fine silver wire and bent it into figured patterns, while the Atjeh smiths hammered soeasa sheet around a copper core and heat-bonded it to the core. The two techniques produce objects of different visual character: the Padang filigree produces delicate openwork ornaments of bent wire, while the Atjeh wrapping produces solid-seeming gilded-copper ornaments with a smooth surface. The two techniques also use different raw materials: the Padang filigree uses silver (typically with silver-copper solder), while the Atjeh wrapping uses soeasa (a 50/50 gold-copper alloy).
The juxtaposition of the two techniques in the same section of the Bezemer atlas is, in this sense, a comparative juxtaposition: the Padang filigree represents one Sumatran regional variant of the broader Indonesian precious-metalwork tradition, while the Atjeh wrapping represents another. The juxtaposition places Atjeh, in 1933, as one of several Sumatran metalwork centres — alongside the Toba-Bataklanden (whose cire perdue casting is documented by J. E. Jasper en Mas Pirngadie) and the Padangsche Bovenlanden (whose filigree is described here) — and so locates Atjeh within the broader Sumatran craft-geography of the late colonial period.
The granulation alternative
The third Sumatran metalwork technique documented in the same section of the Bezemer atlas is *granuleeren* — granulation, the decoration of a metal surface with tiny soldered balls of precious metal. Bezemer notes that granuleeren was the technique of the Batak, Dyak and Timorese silversmiths: “de bolletjes-niek, die bij Bataks, Dajaks en Timoreezen als een eenige, sterk op den voorgrond tredende versieringswijze … wordt toegepast” — “the ball-technique, which among Bataks, Dyaks and Timorese is applied as a single, strongly foregrounded mode of decoration.” The technique is documented in De Inlandsche Kunstnijverheid in Nederlandsch-Indië, Vol. IV, p. 65, by Jasper and Pirngadie, and is described by Bezemer as a third regional variant of Sumatran precious-metalwork, alongside the Padang filigree and the Atjeh soeasa wrapping. The three techniques — Atjeh wrapping, Padang filigree, Batak granulation — together constitute the Sumatran repertoire of precious-metalwork techniques documented in the late colonial Dutch scholarship.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, the Padangsche Bovenlanden filigree is significant principally as the Sumatran alternative to which the Atjeh goldsmithing tradition is contrasted in the late colonial Dutch scholarship. The Padang filigree represents one Sumatran regional variant of the broader Indonesian precious-metalwork tradition; the Atjeh wrapping represents another; the Batak granulation represents a third. The three techniques together constitute the Sumatran repertoire, within which Atjeh metalwork is described as a regional variant in the Bezemer atlas. The filigree technique is, in this sense, the technical foil against which the Atjeh soeasa technique is defined, and the Padangsche Bovenlanden are the Sumatran centre against which Atjeh is compared.
See Also
- Atjeh goldsmithing (soeasa technique)
- Padangsche Bovenlanden
- Spinsbek
- Cire perdue
- Granuleeren
- Rimbaga
- Indonesische Kunstnijverheid (Bezemer 1933)
- T. J. Bezemer
- De Inlandsche Kunstnijverheid in Nederlandsch-Indië
- J. E. Jasper
- Mas Pirngadie
- Toba-Bataklanden
- Sumatra
- Minangkabau
Source
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), p. 13 (describing the filigree work of the Padangsche Bovenlanden as the Sumatran alternative to the Atjeh soeasa wrapping technique) and plates 151–167, 182a–183 (documenting the Padangsche Bovenlanden metalwork). Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, LS 5411.