Raden Saleh

Raden Saleh Sjarif Boestaman (1811 – 23 April 1880) was a painter from the Dutch East Indies, of Arab-Javanese descent, and a key figure in the Romantic movement. He is often regarded as Indonesia’s first modern artist, blending European romanticism with his own cultural background and originality.

Early life

Born in 1811 in the village of Terboyo, near Semarang on Java, Saleh came from a noble Hadhrami family. His father, Sayyid Husen bin Alwi bin Awal bin Yahya, traced his lineage to ancestors who arrived in Java via Surat, India, in the 1600s. His mother, Raden Ayu Sarif Husen bin Alwi bin Awal, was the granddaughter of Sayyid Abdullah Bustam. Through his sister Roqayah, Saleh was the uncle by marriage of the prominent religious leader Habib Ali Kwitang.

Studies in Europe

Saleh’s artistic training began in Bogor under Belgian painter A.J. Payen, who recognized his talent and urged the colonial government to send him to the Netherlands. Saleh arrived in Europe in 1829, studying portraiture with Cornelis Kruseman and landscape painting with Andreas Schelfhout. In 1836, he became the first indigenous Indonesian initiated into Freemasonry. From 1839, he spent five years at the court of Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who became a key patron.

Saleh traveled widely across Europe and to Algiers. In The Hague, lion tamer Henri Martin let him study a lion, inspiring his famous animal-fight paintings. Many works were exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; some were destroyed when the Dutch colonial pavilion in Paris burned in 1931.

Return to the Dutch East Indies/Indonesia

After 20 years in Europe, Saleh returned to the Dutch East Indies in 1852. He worked as a conservator for the colonial art collection and as court painter to the Governors-General, also painting portraits of European officials, Javanese aristocrats, and Peranakan Chinese elites, as well as landscapes. He found life in the colonies stifling, writing that “here, people only talk about coffee and sugar, then sugar and coffee.” He married Constancia von Mansfeld, a wealthy Indo heiress of part-German descent, who financed the construction of his country house in Cikini.

The house was inspired by Callenberg Castle, where Saleh had stayed in 1844. Its grounds were turned into public gardens in 1862, later closing; the site now hosts Taman Ismail Marzuki, while the house itself serves as PGI Cikini Hospital. After Constancia’s death, Saleh married Raden Ayu Danudirdja, a young aristocrat from the Yogyakarta Sultanate, in 1867.

They moved to Bogor, renting a house near the Botanical Gardens with a view of Mount Salak. They traveled together in Europe, but his wife fell ill in Paris with an unknown disease, and they returned to Bogor. She died on 31 July 1880, three months after her husband.

Death

Saleh died suddenly on 23 April 1880, claiming he had been poisoned by a servant. A post-mortem revealed a clot near his heart had disrupted his circulation. He was buried two days later in Kampung Empang, Bogor. His funeral, as reported in the Java-Bode, was attended by landlords, Dutch officials, and curious students from a nearby school.

In Paris, Saleh met Horace Vernet, known for African wildlife scenes, but his work shows stronger influence from Eugène Delacroix. For instance, Hunting Lion (1840) shares compositional elements with Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People.

However, researcher Werner Kraus notes that Saleh never mentioned Delacroix and may have seen his or Vernet’s works at an exhibition. European nobles, including the Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha family (relatives of Queen Victoria) and several Governors-General, were impressed by his mastery of Western painting techniques. In 1883, an exhibition of his works was held in Amsterdam to mark the third anniversary of his death.