Featured Collection Object
Eliza van Zuylen, woman's sarong, 1900-1910, Indonesia, Java, Pekalongan. Cotton; resist dyed. TM 1979.6.9. Gift of K.R.T. Hardjonagoro.
Eliza van Zuylen was one of the most prestigious batik designers in Java in the early 20th century, gaining global recognition and worldwide sales of her “couture” textiles. A woman of Indo-European descent, whose father was a Dutch soldier in the Netherlands East Indies Army, she was one of many women during this era to manage her own workshop. Her technical mastery and quality of cotton, however, set her apart. Often inspired by flowers on Dutch greeting cards, her bouquets, as shown in this piece, became her trademark and set the trend for early 20th century batiks produced along the north coast of Java.
Through most of her career her workshop utilized natural dyes derived from plants to create gentle and soft colors appropriate for her depictions of nature. Though synthetic dyes had been invented in the 1850s and were widely used during Zuylen’s time, she resisted switching over to them until the 1930s as clients began to demand the brighter hues that could only be produced with synthetic dyes.
Eliza and her fabrics became extremely popular and were sold around the world, including in the United States. As she gained in popularity, she gave each design a number to facilitate an easy international ordering process and imprinted many of her fabrics with this number and her signature.
This sarong, produced in Eliza van Zuylen’s workshop, is on view at The Textile Museum in Green: the Color and the Cause through September 11, 2011.