Drawn from the Fowler Museum’s extensive holdings of Indonesian textiles, these eleven beautiful textiles offer fine examples of both courtly and urban batik from Java. The two contrasting styles—on view in Fowler in Focus: Courtly and Urban Batik from Java from May 23–Sept 5, 2010—equally testify to the remarkable free-form artistry that is the hallmark of fine hand-waxed batik.

Refined batiks from Java’s royal courts were highly localized cultural expressions made and used within the immediate neighborhood of the palace. In contrast, more brightly colored batiks made in urban workshops in the island's North Coast trading ports demonstrate the highly cosmopolitan nature of those communities, serving such diverse purposes as Islamic banners for the Sumatran market (left) or altar cloths for Java's Chinese residents.

The pieces on display range from an impressively large skirt cloth for a Javanese sultan to a slim and elegant silk scarf suitable for an itinerant entertainer or women of questionable repute. These works all date from the mid-19thto mid-20th centuries.