26 Facts About Raden Saleh

Raden Saleh Sjarif Boestaman was a pioneering Romantic painter from the Dutch East Indies of Arab-Javanese ethnicity.

Raden Saleh was considered to be the first "modern" artist from Indonesia, and his paintings corresponded with nineteenth-century romanticism which was popular in Europe at the time.

Raden Saleh expressed his cultural roots and inventiveness in his work.

Raden Saleh Syarif Bustaman was born in 1811 in the village of Terboyo, near Semarang on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies.

Raden Saleh was born into a noble Hadhrami family; his father was Sayyid Husen bin Alwi bin Awal bin Yahya, whose family had come to Java via Surat in India in the seventeenth century.

Raden Saleh was the grandson of Sayyid Abdullah Bustam through his mother, Raden Ayu Sarif Husen bin Alwi bin Awal.

Raden Saleh arrived in Europe in 1829 and began to study under Cornelis Kruseman and Andreas Schelfhout.

From Schelfhout, Raden Saleh furthered his skills as a landscape painter.

Raden Saleh visited several European cities, as well as Algiers.

Raden Saleh returned to Dutch East Indies in 1852, after living in Europe for 20 years.

Raden Saleh worked as conservator for the colonial collection of government art, and acted as court painter to the Governors-General.

Raden Saleh later took his wife to travel in Europe, visiting countries such as the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy.

Raden Saleh died on 31 July 1880, following her husband's death three months earlier.

On Friday morning, 23 April 1880, Raden Saleh suddenly fell sick.

Raden Saleh claimed that he was poisoned by one of his servants, and subsequently died; however post-mortem examination showed that his circulatory system was disrupted due to a clot near his heart.

Raden Saleh was buried two days later in Kampung Empang, Bogor.

In 1883, an exhibition of Raden Saleh's paintings was held in Amsterdam to commemorate the third anniversary of Saleh's death, on the initiative of King Willem III and Ernst of Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha.

Raden Saleh is particularly remembered for his historical painting, The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro, which depicted the betrayal of the rebel leader Prince Diponegoro by the colonial government, thus ending the Java War in 1830.

Raden Saleh made significant changes in his version of the painting; Pieneman painted the scene from the right, Raden Saleh from the left.

Pieneman depicts Diponegoro with resigned expression, while in Raden Saleh's he appears to be outraged.

Pieneman gave his painting the title Submission of Prince Diponegoro, while Raden Saleh gave The Arrest of Pangeran Diponegoro.

Raden Saleh's version has a more accurate depiction of native Javanese clothing, with some figures wearing batik and blangkon.

Raden Saleh finished this painting in 1857 and presented it to Willem III of Netherlands in The Hague.

Decades later, somewhere in Bogor, Mas Adung, a descendant of the Sundanese nobleman Raden Saleh Panoeripan, was about to clear the weeds to the west of his house.

Bung Karno once told Adun that "Raden Saleh was a great Indonesian painter who was widely known in Europe" and assigned the architect Friedrich Silaban to restore his tomb.

Raden Saleh's tomb is currently cared for and guarded by a caretaker who is a direct descendant of Raden Panoeripan.