Kettle gong
Alternate name(s)
- Frog drum
Date1630-1680 ca.
Place MadeMyanmar (Burma), Asia
Place MadeThailand (Siam), Asia
Serial No.none
SignednoneMarkingsnone
DescriptionCast bronze body with elaborate concentric design and central starburst. Four (4) groups of stacked frog effigies on drum head. Elephant effigies attached to side.
Prized among mountain people in border regions between present-day Thailand and Myanmar, instruments like this were associated with the ritual practice of summoning rain. This drum dates between 1630 and 1680. These inch-long elephants are adornments on the National Music Museum’s remarkable 17th-century Southeast Asian cast-bronze kettle gong or, ‘frog drum.’The drum’s dating has been based on the shape of its resonating cavity and stylized features. Four stacked sets of three cast-bronze frogs decorate the drum’s top, while decorative lizards, snails, and these two elephants descend its sides. Floral, geometric, and woven-rope designs within concentric circles cover the instrument’s elaborate metalwork.
DimensionsDiameter: 675 mm
Height: 535 mm
ProvenancePurchased in 1980 from Wurlitzer-Bruck, New York, New York.
Published ReferencesThomas E. Cross, Instruments of Burma, India, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet, The Shrine to Music Museum Catalog of the Collections, Vol. II, André P. Larson, editor (Vermillion: The Shrine to Music Museum, 1982), p. 20.
Thomas E. Cross, Instruments of Burma, India, Nepal, Thailand and Tibet, M.M. Thesis, University of South Dakota, May 1983, p. 41, plates XVI and XVII.
André P. Larson, The National Music Museum: A Pictorial Souvenir (Vermillion: National Music Museum, 1988), p. 29.
Credit LineRawlins Fund, 1980
Object number02683
On View
On view
1825-1875 ca.
1850-1875 ca.
1900 ca.
1875-1900 ca.