Provenance of the Prankemon sarongs Sabine Bolk
Carolina Josephina von Franquemont (1817-1867) is a prominent name within the batik textile community. She is seen as the first Indo-European to run a batik workshop around 1850 in the small village of Ungaran near Semarang on Java, Indonesia. Different researchers wrote about her, mentioning that she was known under the local nickname ‘Prankemon’ and was famous for a colourfast, naturally dyed green colour. Von Franquemont did not sign her batiks, but over time numerous batiks from several collections have been attributed to Von Franquemont, as they are thought to have been made by her or made in her batik workshop. Many of these attributions were made within the holdings of the umbrella organisation the Wereldmuseum1 and other ascriptions are based on the batiks kept at these Dutch museums. Since 2017, I have been researching this batik legacy to find out who Von Franquemont was, and which batiks were actually made by her. This article 1
The Wereldmuseum is an umbrella organization comprising locations in Amsterdam, Leiden, Berg en Dal and Rotterdam. It was named the National Museum of World Cultures between 2014 and 2023.
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