The Temple Dances in Bali


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    First Thus.

    31cm x 24cm. 27 pages, 77 plates (24 coloured). Original cloth, new leather labels, gilt lettering.

    Tyra Kleen (1874-1951) was a Swedish artist, ethnographic researcher, keen theosophist, cosmopolitan woman of the world, and a founding member of Foreningen Svenska Konstnarinnor (The Association of Swedish Women Artists). Kleen studied painting in Germany and France, lived and socialised with the cultural elite in Rome at the turn of the 19th century, and travelled, exhibited, and socialised extensively around the world. A fiercely independent character, despite rampant misogyny, she managed to skilfully manoeuvre and at times manipulate to achieve her ambitious goals. She spent many years throughout the 1910s and 1920s in Indonesia, studying ceremonial dance, and produced a number of books on dance, theatre, and ritual in Java and Bali, and in 1938 was awarded the Johan August Wahlberg for her work there. The Temple Dances in Bali includes short text on the Legong, Chalon Arong, and Joghed dances, costume, and music, with illustrations in the text, complimented by numerous captioned plates by Kleen. First published in Swedish in a limited edition of 300 copies as Tempeldanser och musikinstrument pa Bali, and here translated into English for the first time. The Ethnographical Museum of Sweden, Stockholm (Statens Etnografiska Museum) New Series, Publication No. 2.

    Minor bumping to fore-edge corners. Very minor soiling. Very minor foxing to rear endpaper. Very minor cracking to upper hinge, binding firm. Bookseller label of Berkelouw Bookdealers, Sydney. Very Good Condition.

    $3,000.00 AUD

    1 in stock