Sri Lankan Hairpins

SOLD

Collection of Nine Silver & Gold Kondakoora Hairpins/Brooches Set with Semi Precious Stones

Sri Lanka

late 19th – early 20th century

lengths: 9.5cm – 13.5cm, combined weight: 130g

This collection of nine silver (some with gold) hairpins are set with pink sapphires, emeralds and clear stones known locally in Sri Lanka as Matara ‘diamonds’ (white zircons). (Matara is a sea port on the south coast of Sri Lanka from where the stones come.) Known as kondakoora hairpins, each has an arrow-like end and a boteh-shaped finial. Such hairpins were worn by women in the ‘Low Country’ regions of Sri Lanka from the 18th through to the early 20th century.

Almost invariably, these are wrongly ascribed to India or Turkey and described as turban ornaments. An early photograph below shows a Sri Lankan woman wearing such a pin in her hair. Later, the fashioned developed in Sri Lanka for the hairpins to be worn as brooches and so many, including eight of the nine examples here, were fitted with long brooch pins on the reverse.

Three examples are illustrated in Cruse (2007, p. 115). Examples also have appeared in Malaysia where Chettiyar women, particularly in Malacca, wore them. It is not clear however, if the Malaysian examples were made in Malaysia (there were plenty of Tamil jewellers in the Straits Settlements) or if they were imported from Sri Lanka. In any event, the national museum of Malaysia, Museum Negara Malaysia, has seven such hairpins in its collection. Kassim (1988) observes that it was indeed the Chettiyar of Malacca who wore them.

This is a fine collection of such harpins. Generally they are in excellent condition. One is missing just one stone, but otherwise remarkably all the stones are present.

References

Coomaraswamy, A.K., Mediaeval Sinhalese Art, Pantheon Books, 1956.

Wimalaratne, K.D.G. & D. Gomes, Costumes of Sri Lanka, 2001.

Provenance

UK private collection

Inventory no.: 1767

SOLD