This beautiful and very fine songket (c. 1900 or earlier) comes from the Malays of the north-east coast of the Malay Peninsula. The production of songket textiles was an extremely time consuming and expensive process. They were hand-woven using the supplementary weft technique from expensive materials.This songket comprises red silk woven with gold-wrapped thread and coloured silk thread. Tradtionally, the red of the underlying silk fabric was achieved from the exudations (tahi malau) of an insect.The brocade work of this example is particularly fine. The central panel (badan) is filled with flower motifs: star motifs (bunga sinar matahari beralih), a small eight petal flower (bunga kermunting cina - the Chinese rose myrtle), and floral chains (corak teluk berantai),The panels at either end are decorated with kepala punca motifs, the triangular bamboo shoot motif (pucuk rebung kayohan) and a tulip-shaped motif (bunga tiga dara), and what is probably the lawi ayam (chicken feather) motif.
