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The drum shows a central twelve-ray star medallion on the flat top encircled by concentric bands of decoration and with four groups of frogs piled on top of one another, the tapering body with double-strap handles and finely decorated with carps, tiered bosses, elephants, and stocks of crops in relief descending the sides.
Provenance: From the private collection of Olivier Maréchal, Belgium. Olivier Maréchal (b. 1973) is a noted Belgian collector and dealer specializing in the arts of India, Vietnam, and Thailand. He began his career in the mid-1990s, learning from his father who helped him with his first purchases. He later managed Surya Gallery in Brussels, Belgium.
Condition: Good condition with minor wear, traces of use, and casting irregularities. Small dents, nicks, scratches, encrustations, and some warping. The bronze displaying a fine, naturally grown, patina.
Dimensions: Height 59.7 cm, Diameter 57.3 cm
The Karen used to store their treasures in frog drums and bury them secretly in the ground, believing that they could take their possessions with them after death. Until the sixteenth century it was the custom of the Shan, Karen, and other tribes of eastern Burma at the death of a chief to bury his possessions, including his wives, elephants, weapons and other valued objects. The Karen, like other drum users in Yunnan and Vietnam, were known to bury their drums with their owners. Bayinnaung (1551-1581), one of Burma's greatest conquerors who in his heyday ruled over all of Burma (and a large part of Thailand) except for the Arakan coast, being a devout Buddhist forbade such funerary practices. As a compromise, token offerings were subsequently placed in graves. In place of a complete drum, a piece often in the form of a frog was cut off and buried.
The American missionary and naturalist Dr. Francis Mason wrote in 1868 that no Karen was considered rich without a frog drum, regardless of whatever his precious possessions might be. Anyone with money endeavored to turn it into a frog drum. Such drums were insurance against crop failure and famine, for they could readily be sold to buy food in times of hardship. They could be owned both by individuals or clans. A village with many drums was the envy of other villages and was often the cause of inter-tribal feuds to obtain possession of them. Drums were frequently beaten to heighten morale before Karen warfare, which generally consisted of a lightning raid of a rival village, killing the inhabitants as they tried to escape and then setting fire to the longhouse in which the village lived. A successful outcome was naturally a cause for celebration and further beating of the drums.
Karen bronze drums were cast by Shan craftsmen at Nwe Daung (Silver Mountain), the only recorded casting site in Burma, between approximately 1820 and 1889. Karen drums were cast by the lost wax technique; a characteristic that sets them apart from the other bronze drum types that were made with molds. A five-metal formula was used to create the alloy consisting of copper, tin, zinc, silver, and gold. Most of the material in the drums is tin and copper with only traces of silver and gold.
The importance of these drums to the Karen meant that the master craftsmen of the Shan people had to undergo certain purification rites before a drum could be cast at a time predetermined by astrological calculations. On the day before, they were required to undergo a cleansing ritual to invoke spiritual guidance during casting. After bathing, they made offerings of fruit and candles, then slept undisturbed that evening. When they arrived at the foundry the following morning, a circle was marked out in which the casting was to be performed. Within this area the wearing of footwear was prohibited. Swearing and the consumption of intoxicants were also forbidden until the work was completed. In addition to the various sub-groups of Karen, buyers from Laos, Thailand and other regions used to converge on Ngwedaung at the end of the rainy season in October-November to purchase drums to sell to various tribal groups such as the Tsa Khamu. During the late 19th century, non-Karen hill people, attracted to the area by the prospect of work with British teak loggers, bought large numbers of Karen drums and transported them to Thailand and Laos. Consequently, their owners frequently incorrectly identify their drums as being indigenous to these countries.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 21 March 2015, lot 1011
Price: USD 32,500 or approx. EUR 39,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Southeast Asian bronze rain drum, 18th/19th century
Expert remark: Compare the closely related form and decoration with similar elephants, twelve-rays star, and size (52.6 cm).
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