Borobudur, Cephas and Demmeni

The old photo of Borobudur shows a slightly different temple than the one that stands today. Atop the structure's highest stupa is a three-tiered, stone umbrella called a chattra. Today at the temple, located in Yogyakarta, there is no such parasol. French photographer Jean Demmeni took the photo, most likely between 1907 and 1911 when Borobudur was being restored by Theodore van Erp, an engineer from the Dutch army.

It is a rare photo of Borobudur. Demmeni rarely shot temples, and there are only a few such shots in the 150 of his photos that were recently on display at Rumah Topeng (Mask House) in Ubud, Bali. Among them is a Balinese pura temple in Singaraja, the Mendut temple in Central Java and Borobudur. Demmeni's relative unfamiliarity with temples shows in the notes he took about them. He jotted down that Mendut and Borobudur are Hindu temples, though both were built by Buddhists.

August 5, 2014