The island of Sumatra lies on one of the world’s greatest trade routes, the maritime route linking China in the east to India, the Middle East and Europe in the West. For two thousand years the peoples of Sumatra have actively engaged in this trade. They integrated within their own cultures the many and varied influences that reached their shores from overseas.
This book looks at the rich artistic heritage of Sumatra that has come down to us from the early Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms and from the later Islamic sultanates. It examines the influences from China, India, the Islamic lands and Europe, through the statues, textiles, jewelry, and other crafts in two of the world’s finest collections of Indonesian art, those of the National Museum of Indonesia (Jakarta) and the National Museum of Ethnology (Leiden). This book, and the exhibition that it accompanies, are part of the cooperative project between the two museums.