Footnotes

• Traditional Malay and Javanese houses were made of wood with a public area for receiving guests and then with private living quarters. For wealthy, aristocratic families, the public and private areas were separated by elaborate, costly dividers such as this example. Importantly, in the humid, tropical climate, the finely carved open-work allowed air to flow freely between the open, public exterior and the enclosed interior. It also permitted the womenfolk of the household who stayed in the interior to look out whilst ensuring that visiting menfolk who were confined to the outside, public area, were unable to see in.
  
  Entrances such as these were made in Jepara and exported across the Islamic Malay world - to the Malay peninsula, to Borneo and to Sumatra. (Jepara has been one of Java's most important ports since the 8th century, and connected the various Javanese kingdoms with the rest of the Malay world, and with China and India.)
  
  The design of such entrances clearly is inspired from similar architectural devices used in northern India and the Middle East; with Haj and trade routes between Islamic Southeast Asia and northern India and the Middle East providing the means of transmission for such influence.
  
  Note: Southeast Asian teak (tectonagrandis) is not covered by CITES restrictions.

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Category: Islamic and Oriental Art / Islamic and Indian Art

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