As it is in just one room upstairs at the back of the British Museum, and is FREE, I thought this would be a relatively light and small exhibition to enjoy, but I was wrong. It’s a surprisingly packed exhibition which gives a panoramic view of Indonesian, and particularly Javanese, culture – at least through the eyes of one of its earliest European collectors.
Puppet of the comic character Sabda Palon, one of Damarwulan’s servants (Central Java, probably Surakarta, 1700s) © Trustees of the British Museum
Stamford Raffles, a potted biography
Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781 to 1826) started working for the East India Company when he was 14, and spent most of his life as an East India Company official in Southeast Asia. In 1811 he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java when the British seized it from the Dutch, but in 1815, when we gave it back to the Dutch at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, he was forced to stand down and returned to England.
Raffles arrived back in Britain with a substantial collection, almost 450 puppets, over 700 coins, more than 350 drawings, over 130 masks, more than 120 small metal sculptures and five small stone sculptures. His collection quickly became the talk of academic London and Raffles settled down to write what became a massive two-volume History of Java. On its publication in 1817 he dedicated it to the Prince Regent and was rewarded with a knighthood. That’s how to make friends and influence people!
Portrait of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles by James Thompson (1824)
In 1817 Raffles went back out East when he was chosen to be Lieutenant-Governor of Bengkulu (Bencoolen), in southwest Sumatra, where he served until 1824. It was during this period that he took advantage of a succession dispute between local rulers to seize the small village of Singapore, as the perfect location for a trading post for the British East India Company half way between India and China.
This ‘foundation’ of Singapore took place in 1819, and this explains why this exhibition has been mounted – indirectly to mark the bicentennary of what went on to become one of the most vibrant commercial cities in the world.
Post-imperial reappraisal
But, as you might expect of any leading figure in the British Empire, Raffles is nowadays frowned on by academics, by historians and curators (not to mention the inhabitants of Java and Indonesia, or those who are interested enough in their history to have heard of him).
Raffles has become, in other words, a controversial figure, one of thousands of similar controversial imperial figures, once revered in their European homelands for deeds of derring-do and seizing territory from foreigners – now undergoing reappraisal from academics and curators who are, because of their positions, more than usually aware of the need for respect and diversity in our modern multicultural societies.
A demon, Buta Kimul, Cirebon, Western Java, late 1700s to early 1800s
The Raffles collection
Anyway, the exhibition explains that Raffles was an avid collector of objects from the region, particularly from Java but also from China, Sumatra (now part of Indonesia), India, Burma (Myanmar) and Siam (Thailand). He had the true collector mentality, he was fascinated with bargaining and bartering for obscure objects, and then categorising them and arranging them.
Eventually he accumulated some 2,000 objects which provide us with a vital record of the art and court cultures of Java from approximately the 7th century to the early 19th century.
This exhibition presents the cream of Raffles’ personal collection and adds some loan objects from the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, seen here in the UK for the first time. So it’s a collaborative exhibition and will transfer to the Singapore museum next year.
The exhibition is divided up into quite a few sub-sections, each devoted to a specific type of artefact. These include:
- Hindu and antiquities
- bronze Buddhas and bodhisattvas
- protective amulets
- theatrical puppets
- theatrical masks
- musical instruments
- stone sculptures
- metal sculptures
In all there are 130 objects, many of them very beautiful. I think the curator was wise to begin with a dramatic display of theatrical face masks and stick puppets from across Java, since these are by far the most colourful and attractive objects.
Javanese theatre masks
We learn that Java and the nearby islands were home to a combination of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, until Islam arrived around 1400. This explains the number of Hindu and Buddhist statues on display.
It also explains another particular thread of Raffles’s collection, which was the organised visits he paid to a series of famous Hindu and Buddhist archaeological sites. Each of these is given its own section in the display cabinets, with a label explaining its location (and a map), a photo of the modern site, and then examples of drawings made at the locations. Often these drawings are not by him; he bought them off Dutch antiquarians who had visited and sketched the various sites.
To be honest, I found these worthy but a bit boring – one for the specialist in the religious architecture of medieval Java, maybe.
Pair of drawings showing a temple covered in foliage (right), and as imagined in a complete state (left), with commentary by G. P. Baker. H. C. Cornelius (1774–c.1833), around 1807
The curator makes the interesting point that what’s interesting about many of these drawings is the way they have been ‘beautified’ i.e. touched up to appeal to the late-eighteenth century taste for ruins, especially ruined temples, churches etc. Most of the buildings remain today and don’t look remotely as weathered and picturesque as these stylish drawings.
Raffles’ colonial motivation
Raffles had an ulterior motive for making such an extensive collection. The British had seized Java from the Dutch when the latter allied with Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars. However, we gave it back to the Dutch with the peace of 1815, but Raffles thought this was a mistake. He thought Indonesia ought to be a British colony. According to the curator this was based not only on straightforward mercantile considerations, but also on a particular view of history.
Raffles subscribed to one of the many theories of history floating around during the Enlightenment, in his case the view that civilisations rise and fall in a continual ebbing and flowing.
He thought the impressive ruins which he visited, and the highly crafted artifacts which he bought, showed that Java had once had a great civilisation… and could do so once again, if carefully tutored and supported by a benevolent patron, namely the British.
Therefore Raffles made his extensive collection, at least in part, to persuade his British masters that the island was worth taking over as a British protectorate. Same goes for the enormous two-volume History of Java which contains a monumental survey and history of the island state. In it Raffles provides a comprehensive ethnographic description of the island’s society, describing its economy, trade, languages and dialects, and religious and social customs, together with a detailed history of the island, including a discussion of the introduction of Islam.
He was a true collector and early ethnographer, but also a man of his time and a thorough colonialist. This exhibition is a truly fascinating insight, less into the man, than into the history of the place whose artifacts and objects he collected so assiduously.
Finally, from the whole collection of masks and puppets and statues and swords and ceramics and drawings, I thought by far the most winning object was one of the ‘additional’ objects on loan to the exhibition and not actually collected by Raffles himself, but from a much later generation – this wonderfully intricate model ship made entirely out of cloves!
Model boat from the Maluku islands, made of cloves and fibre, late 19th century
Related links
- Sir Stamford Raffles: collecting in Southeast Asia 1811 to 1824 continues at the British Museum until 12 January 2020 and is FREE
Books & Boots 
mytwostotinki
/ November 12, 2019That really looks fascinating! I lived a few years in Central Java (Yogyakarta, not very far from Borobudur, which Raffles rediscovered, since it was for hundreds of years covered by volcanic ashes) and read during that time his History of Java. In Yogyakarta he is mainly remembered as the person who looted and destroyed part of the Kraton, the Sultan’s palace. There is also a book by Nigel Barley about Raffles which is very insightful. Although I am very reluctant to visit the UK right now for obvious reasons, I still hope I can make it to see this exhibition before it closes in January.
artandarchitecturemainly
/ November 13, 2019Great post. Thank you for adding the fact that Raffles’ reputation has changed back and forward over the centuries. Imperial figures, once revered in their European homelands for deeds of bravery and seizing territory for Britain etc, really needed to be reappraised by contemporary and modern historians.
But as the British Museum exhibition shows, Raffles introduced partial self-government, banned the slave trade, restricted the opium trade, led an expedition to rebuild Borobudur and other important local sites, and ended the hated, exploitative system of Dutch land management. He went out of his way to learn the local languages, especially Malay. And look what a scholarly collector of Javanese cultural artefacts and manuscripts he was.
Hels
https://melbourneblogger.blogspot.com/2019/11/sir-stamford-raffles-scholarly.html
bitaboutbritain
/ November 16, 2019Fascinating. If I get to the Smoke before this exhibition ends, I will make a point of visiting. Raffles appears to have been a man of his time, of course; but also possibly ahead of his time too. History suggests that he was certainly right in his view that civilisations rise and fall in a continual ebbing and flowing.