NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA – TAASA Review December 2011

This striking figure of a woman, seated at her loom while she suckles her infant, is the rarest and most important bronze sculpture from Southeast Asia to enter the national collection.

It survives as a fine example of an archaic Southeast Asian style still associated with animism in remote areas where Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam have had surprisingly little influence on the arts.

The sculpture was created through the lost wax (cire perdu) method of bronze casting, most likely in the late 6th century CE. The Bronze Weaver is extremely significant, not only for its rarity and aesthetic power, but also for the questions it poses about bronze technology and weaving traditions in the outer islands of Indonesia...