Museum of Rotterdam to return puppets

JAKARTA: The World Museum of Rotterdam will return several shadow puppets, which have been in its possession for at least 40 years, to city-owned Museum Wayang (shadow puppet museum), a city official said over the weekend.

City Tourism and Museum Agency head Aurora Tambunan said that the return of the puppets was part of a recent agreement made between the Rotterdam administration and the agency recently in the Netherlands.

"They will hand over 90 puppets out of a total of 180 puppets since they want to ensure that we maintain them well. The remaining 90 puppets will be sent next year," she said.

The hand-over ceremony is scheduled for Aug. 15.

According to her, the puppets, which depict figures from Indonesia's struggle for independence from Dutch rule, were bought by a art collector with the World Museum of Rotterdam from a collector in Surakarta, Central Java in 1965.

Rotterdam is one of Jakarta's sister cities. --JP