We sold these dramatic wood carvings at two different QBO sales, but they represent the same semi-divine bird entity, Garuda, and both were hand-carved in Bali, Indonesia. If you’ve ever had the good luck to travel to Bali, you might well have encountered Garuda even before your arrival because ‘Garuda Indonesia’ is the country’s national airline; you can see Garuda’s stylized feathers on the fleets’ tail fins, and their logo is Garuda’s fierce, crested head.
Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago composed of over 17,000 islands which, when you add up the total land mass, is the 14th-largest country in the world. By population it is the fourth largest, at 270 million, and the single largest Muslim population at 13% of the world’s total. It has been inhabited by humans, or proto-humans as far back as two million years. The country has been multi-cultural for centuries and religious freedom is constitutionally protected. Today Indonesia is also a highly popular tourist destination, with almost 12 million foreign tourists visiting in 2023. So you can see how important Garuda Indonesia’s large and active fleet is to travel to, from and between all those islands.
And who better to safely carry all those people than Garuda, a noble and divine servant tasked with preserving cosmic order. On the Hindu-majority island of Bali where these two carvings were made Garuda is revered as Lord of All Flying Creatures, and the Majestic King of Birds. In Hindu tradition, the god Vishnu rides Garuda into battle against the Naga (dragons). Garuda has a place in the Buddhist and Jain faiths as well and, depending on the text, can symbolize knowledge, power, bravery, loyalty, and/or discipline.
As such, he was the perfect candidate for the country’s emblem when it gained independence in 1949. The Netherlands, led by the private Dutch East India Company, had colonized Indonesia in 1602 to get a monopoly on expensive, desirable spices such as nutmeg, mace, and cloves, which cannot be grown in Europe. (Indonesia was once known as “The Spice Islands.”) But after over 300 years of colonial rule, Indonesians had definitely had enough and leveraged the chaos caused by a Japanese invasion during World War II to finally free themselves of Dutch rule.
The national emblem of Indonesia shows Garuda carrying a banner that reads “Bhinneka Tunggal Ika” which means “Unity in Diversity” in Old Javanese. But, you will notice that the Garuda of the emblem is strictly a bird – no crocodilian teeth, no anthropomorphized human torso, limbs or hands, as shown so dramatically on the larger of our two spectacular carvings.
This is to accommodate Indonesia’s many faiths, not all of which recognize Garuda as divine. The six major religions in order of prevalence are Islam (Sunni, Shia, and Ahmadi), Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, with multiple smaller, indigenous religions also being practiced regionally. A strict interpretation of the Koran does not allow visual illustrations of ‘mythological’ entities, so in respect of devout Muslims, the official government depiction of Garuda is all eagle, not a semi-divine man-bird. In the first draft of the design, the official Garuda eagle had a plain round head, but this was judged to look too much like our American bald eagle, so a feathered crest was added, a detail which is in keeping with nature as there are several crested eagle species. Luckily, if you’d like your own Garuda, you do not have to fly the airline all the way to Bali, you need only visit a few QBO sales.
Tuesday Treasures was started by our staff member, Jeanne Lusignan. Each week she will be featuring items that have been found at our estate sales. If you would like to submit a treasure for Jeanne to feature in a future installment of “Tuesday’s Treasures”, please follow the button below and send us an email! Please attach a few photos of your treasure in a beautiful setting as well as any details you have about your item such as manufacturer, use, age, region of origin. If you don’t know about the piece, that’s okay! We still might be able to research it for you! Don’t forget to tell us what makes this item such a treasure to you!