Museum Quality Old Brocade Damask Wedding Sarung Songket Textile Embroidery 43"x21" belonging to Balinese Nobility royalty. Cobalt Blue with Metallic Gold Threads Hand woven with Handspun Cotton & Silk in a beautiful pattern Klungkung Regency, Bali (SG35)
TEXTILES OF THE PAST
Museum Quality Brocade Wedding Sarung Songket, Once Belonged to Balinese Royalty / Nobility. Cobalt Blue Dowry Textile Embroidery with Metallic Gold Threads, Handwoven with Handspun Cotton and Silk Blend.
SIZE: 43" x 20.5"
Collected in the Klungkung Regency, Bali
Over 60 years old
15 tiny pin holes and 2 slightly larger ones, seen on photos and border a bit uneven but good condition for age.
I took pictures of any rips and holes, so please inspect photos thoroughly before buying.
Hard to find today especially older ones and in this good a condition
This is a bargain that was part of our private collection and now for sale at a fraction of its value.
I have seen this type of old songket weaving with extreme minute details sell in the $1,000.00's on the internet even with holes and rips.
All handmade from the hand spinning to the hand weaving to the hand embroidered needlework. Minute, time-consuming intricate and perfect embroidery motifs! Takes long months to achieve, sometimes years! Never 2 of those prized cloths are alike!
Handmade dowry textiles are passed from one generation to the next and used mostly for ceremonial purposes because of their worth. They attest to the wealth of the owner.
Songket is a fabric that belongs to the family of brocade textiles. It is hand woven in silk or cotton, and intricately patterned with gold or silver threads. The metallic threads stand out against the background cloth to create a shimmering effect. In the weaving process the metallic threads are inserted in between the silk or cotton weft (latitudinal) threads. The term songket comes from the Malay Indonesian word sungkit, which means "to hook". It has something to do with the method of songket making; to hook and pick a group of threads, and then slip the gold threads in it. The word menyongket means "to embroider with gold or silver threads".
Songket is a luxury product traditionally worn during ceremonial occasions as sarong, shoulder cloths or head ties. Tanjak or Songket headdresses were worn at the courts of the Malay Sultanates and nobility. Traditionally women and adolescent girls wove songket and traditionally-patterned textiles embodied a system of interpretable emblems to the few that were able to create them and wear them.
Few costumes in the world have the dignified elegance of the ceremonial costume of a noblewoman: the underskirt dragging on the ground in a train of silk and gold; the torso, bound from the hips to the armpits; first is a strong bulang, a strip of cloth covered by a sabuk, another strip of silk overlaid, and gold leaf and gold plugs through her ears.
All our collector and rare items come with pages and pages of research about provenance, and with history of the tribes and photos as well, depending on item and whenever possible. When shipping internationally, we group ship multiple purchases to save you money, and find the best rates available. If you have any questions or want to see research conducted on this piece and photos of tribes, tell us.