Malay Silver and Gold: Courtly Splendour from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand

This is an outstanding book with excellent layout and seemingly infinite clear photographs on every page (475 photographs over 292 pages to be precise) of gold and silver items from the Malay world, most of which I’ve never seen before, including items used for feasting, for betel nut, jewellery, belt buckles, weddings, regalia, weapons and items made for the European market from gold filigree work.Through 20 chapters, Backman reconstructs an evocative Malay world, not only with his intense research but also with his beautiful storytelling skill. The chapters are not overly long but full of information. Several easy-to-read historical chapters give better context, and there are several particularly interesting chapters on how western museums and collectors impacted on the work of Malay craftsmen in the 19th century. I found these particularly illuminating. I like juxtaposition of old black and white photos to show how artefacts were used, and this book has plenty, each with precise description. There’s also an index, which I always find useful.I must say, the chapter that I find most fascinating is Chapter 9: A taxonomy of motifs. In this chapter, Backman shows actual flowers and other natural plants forms alongside how the Malay silversmiths depicted these flowers and things in silver and gold on the items they made. It’s really interesting.Through the silver and gold items of the Malays, this book shows how the Malay world is much more than Malaysia by including the Malays in Sumatra in Indonesia, Borneo (Brunei), southern Thailand, and Singapore.This is a topic about which little has been written in the past and yet somehow Backman has managed to pull together an incredible amount of information and to have covered the topic in a very thorough way. It's a Herculaneum effort! For me, this is a rather rare academic page-turner.

Malay Silver and Gold was meticulously researched and written with great passion. The illustrations were carefully chosen and greatly enhanced the read. I learnt a great deal from this spectacular book.

The amount of information in this excellent book is astounding. Superbly written and researched and filled with wonderful reference pictures of the very finest examples of Malay decorative art.My interest in this book was to better understand the jewellery of the region, but I’m learning so much about history, culture and trade too.A must for any serious researcher or those with an appreciation of beautiful silver and gold.