Dragon and Phoenix

This exhibition from the National Gallery of Australia's extensive collection of Southeast Asian textiles focuses on objects from the region which reflect a strong Chinese influence.

The history of land and sea contacts between China and Southeast Asia dates back over a thousand years. Some of the adventurers who visited the region stayed. and centuries of intermarriage between these immigrant Chinese traders, labourers and seamen and local Southeast Asian women has resulted in communities that draw upon both Chinese and local traditions for ritual and art. Their ceremonies are marked by marvellous displays of textiles which incorporate local Southeast Asian and imported Chinese elements. Spectacular Chinese costumes were highly regarded by many Southeast Asian communities who incorporated Chinese textiles and metal ornaments into their own ceremonial dress.

The exhibition can be divided into two related parts – the embroidered wedding costumes and accessories of the Straits Chinese communities of Malaysia, and the ceremonial and everyday batik textiles of the Peranakan Chinese people of the northern coastal towns on the island of Java in Indonesia.

The National Gallery is fortunate to have been given a fine collection of Malaysian-Chinese costumes and accessories from the collection of Mrs Alice Hartley, a long time resident of Canberra, ACT, who died in December 1992. Mrs Hartley collected the embroidered items in the late 1930s and 1940s when she lived in (then) British Malaya. The objects were donated to the Gallery by Mrs Hartley and members of her family (her daughter, Dr Lindsey Smith of Sydney, and her son and daughter-in-law, Mr and Mrs Hugh Fairfield-Smith of Wagga Wagga).

As the donor is best known as the founder of the Alice Smith School which still functions today in central Kuala Lumpur, the gift is entitled the 'Alice Smith collection'.

The brightly coloured silk and gold thread textiles were worn as ceremonial costume and displayed as hangings and furnishings at weddings in the Baba Chinese communities of the Malay peninsula. Some pieces were made in China, others in Malaysia. The selection in the exhibition includes several large embroidered garments and a range of bridal regalia such as neckpieces, shoes and ties, as well as altar cloths and other ceremonial furnishings. Objects such as the cloud collars and a Malay-style ornamental kerchief are amongst the finest examples of these spectacular embroideries in a public collection.

Closely related to the Baba—Nonya blend of Chinese and Malay silk traditions in Malaysia are the cotton textiles of Indonesia's acculturated Peranakan Chinese communities. These communities often adopted the local Javanese technique of hand-drawn wax-resist batik to decorate their ceremonial and everyday textiles.

Although the images found on these textiles are distinctly Chinese, the forms of the garments – the wraparound kain panjang and tubular kain sarong skirts — are Javanese. The exhibition includes a small number of batik skirts, altar cloths and hangings used in wedding ceremonies in Java.

Whatever the decorative medium — silk embroidery, gold-thread couching, stump-work, beadwork, batik or gold-leaf gluework — all these textiles display distinctly Chinese motifs. In particular, fanciful beasts and birds from Chinese mythology, including the dragon, the phoenix, the dog-lion and the qilin unicorn, are prominent and recurring images. Also featured in these textiles are other natural images such as deer, aquatic creatures (including goldfish and lobsters), and floral emblems (such as peonies and lotuses). The textile designs often incorporate ribbon-decked ‘lucky’ symbols and venerable sages. Border patterns based on interlocking swastikas, so much admired by Southeast Asian artists, are popular in this tradition. It is this interplay between foreign influences and local textile traditions which has been an enduring focus of the National Gallery's Southeast Asian textiles collection.

Robyn Maxwell
Senior Curator, Asian Art