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A REJUVENATION CURE? Inventing Yogya Silver, Saving a Perishing Javanese Industry Marjolein van Asdonck
FIGURE 1 Silver objects for sale at the shop of Pakarjan Ngajogijakarta. Wereldmuseum Collectie TM-ALB-1986-12.
In the 1930s, so-called Yogya silver became a 'rejuvenated' craft by Mrs. Van Gesseler Verschuir-Pownall. In close collaboration with the Archaeological services, Mrs. Van Gesseler VerschuirPownall would select 'authentic' motifs, after which she would commission silversmiths to produce these objects for a European market. Van Asdonck looks at the causes of the 'decline' of the silversmith industry in Java, and the violent nature of the Ethical Policy in the field of arts and crafts. Rather than understanding Yogya Silver as a revival, Van Asdonck understands it as an invented practice of erasure in the context of colonial and imperial relations.