The buketan design, comprising large bouquets of European flowers interspersed with butterflies and birds, is repeated on this sarong. On the kepala (broad vertical panel of the batik), the single buketan motif is set against the plain green ground and decorated with tiny stemmed flowers. The ‘body’ or badan is in pink and is filled with a denser background pattern of single blooms. This batik is part of a large group donated to the museum by the descendants of three generations of female batik makers from Pekalongan. It was made by the grandmother of the donors, Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing. Nyonya Oeij Kok Sing was a second-generation batik maker in Pekalongan. She began to produce high quality batiks in the 1920s. Her batiks from the 1930s reveal great technical virtuosity and a creative use of colour, made possible by synthetic dyes from Europe. After the Second World War, her daughter Jane Hendromartono (1924–1988) took over the family batik business.
