Dear Mac,
Thank you for your valuable assessment. The dimensions are: 50.5 x 151 cm (1' 7" x 4' 11"). The weight is very low: 200 g (7.1 oz), 262 g/m2 (0.86 oz/ft2). In terms of weight per area this is close to the bottom of the scale for cotton ikat. (Working on weight classes for the website, and now realize that it would be good if I made separate classes for silk and cotton.) The yellow appears to be natural, kunyit. I cut of one of the fringe threads and put it in between a folded sheet of tissue paper. This is the result:
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File comment: Bleeding yellow dye
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As the dye began bleeding within minutes, and the colour is exactly the same as the kunyit we use in the kitchen, I think it is safe to conclude that that is what it is. The green I am not sure about (and I cannot get at the cloth easily at this moment). Nor am I wholly sure about the red and the purple. It is similar to the purplish maroon of many Lio cloth, but a little redder. It could well be aniline dye, or aniline red over indigo.
What I find so strange is that the design is so very different from the 'normal' Lio
luka semba. It looks festive and gay, but the ikating is several grades below the best Lio work. The use of that bleeding yellow would mean that you could wear it only on good days. If you'd wear it in the rain, you'd have yellow running into all the rest of your clothes. Could it be that it was intended to adorn a sculpture in the house temple? So that bit remains mysterious. I am glad though you agree on the likely place of origin. I hate to have floating pieces that I cannot anchor anywhere.
The yarn to me appears to be incontestably hand spun. Have a look at the shot below. (More on the site at
http://ikat.us/ikat_display_micro.php?item=251 It gives me the feeling that the cloth may well be older than it looks: fresh, unused.
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File comment: Two more micro photographs on website.
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I just discovered a cloth, not ikat, from Flores (without further provenance in the collection of a friend) that has similar small motifs. The format of the cloth looks like something that might be used to dress a sculpture.
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File comment: Flores cloth (non-ikat) with similar motifs
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Have a good weekend,
Peter
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Peter ten Hoopen
www.ikat.us
PUSAKA COLLECTION: ONLINE MUSEUM OF TRADITIONAL INDONESIAN IKAT TEXTILES