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Illustration of Prambanan in The History of Java
Illustration of Prambanan in The History of Java
  • … that the illustration of ruins in The History of Java (example pictured) is more beautiful than it actually is?
  • Source: “Presented as unpoetically as possible in the form of technical drawings, the contrast could not be more striking between these and the romantic aquatints produced by William Daniell that depict the ruined candis surmounted by masses of luxuriant vegetation … and his “superlatively beautiful” ruin landscapes, at least to one reviewer, rendered the candis infinitely more pleasing to the eye” 1
  • Reviewed:
5x expanded by Ivan530 (talk).
  • Alt1 … that Stamford Raffles collected over thirty tons of Javanese objects to help him write The History of Java.
  • Source: “Most of this huge first collection, over thirty tons, unloaded from the Ganges in London in 1816, was to aid the writing of The History of Java.” from page 110, Forge, Anthony (1994). “Raffles and Daniell: Making the Image Fit”. In Gerstle, C. Andrew; Milner, Anthony Crothers (eds.). Recovering the Orient: Artists, Scholars, Appropriations. Harwood Academic Publishers. p. 109–150. ISBN 9783718653416. via Google books
Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

– Ivan530 (Talk) 17:20, 15 May 2026 (UTC).[reply]

  • Nice to see an improved article that addresses non-Anglophone culture. Prose size has been expanded from 465 bytes to 2595 bytes, so the 5x requirement is met and the nomination is timely. The article is generally well-written and Earwig confirms this is original text, but there are some tweaks needed. The first paragraph of the Publication history section needs a citation. Citation 2 needs more details; it gives an author, date, and title but it’s not easy for the reader to find what kind of publication it is. If it’s a book, the publisher and page number(s) need specifying and ideally there should be an ISBN or OCLC number. The lead really ought to be more than one sentence. Wherever “Raffles'” is used possessively, it needs a possessive apostrophe.
The image is highly relevant to the hook, readable at thumbnail size, used in the article, and in the public domain. QPQ not needed.
I don’t find the language of the hook very elegant: there isn’t agreement between the plural word “ruins” and the singular pronoun “it”. The same idea can be expressed by “the illustration of ruins … exaggerates their beauty” and I propose that change. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:18, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@TSventon: after writing the above review I noticed your post on the article’s Talk page suggesting a tweaked hook. We’re agreed that the hook needs changing. I’m interested in your opinion of my suggestion above. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:30, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@MartinPoulter: have you looked at the relevant pages of Tiffin, 539 and 540? The hook should be a statement of fact and beauty is subjective. Tiffin is describing and quoting from a rather convoluted 19th-century review. It is also well known that artists often try to make their subjects more beautiful.
Citation 2 seems to be from a book published by Brill and I agree that an ISBN and page numbers should be added. The edition in the Wikipedia Library is dated 2008. TSventon (talk) 13:00, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@TSventon: Thanks for your insight and your improvements to the article. You make a good point. @Ivan530: I don’t have much time to concentrate on this at the weekend, but I’d like to explore alternative hooks and I’m open to your ideas if you have any. MartinPoulter (talk) 10:35, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@TSventon: @MartinPoulter: Sorry for late response, I got very busy in the last few days. I agree that it should be different hook as this is my first time nominating DYK after all. Hopefully I’ll think a new one soon. – Ivan530 (Talk) 03:50, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Ivan530 and MartinPoulter: I have added another possible hook, Alt1 above, but will be happy if you can improve it or find a better one. If possible, it would also be useful to add some modern criticism of the way Raffles justifies British colonialism and his own work. TSventon (talk) 13:10, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Nice. Yours are better than mine. Also thank you for finding that source, I will be reading that. There are some sources in Indonesian on criticisms that I skipped when expanding the article (due to reliability concern). Probably I need to search for it and read it again – Ivan530 (Talk) 14:16, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Ivan530: can you access Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library? I found the following via Cambridge University Press:
@TSventon: Yes I can. Just found those source. TIL you can access each library directly and search on those. The search result seems better. Usually when I try The Wikipedia Library I just use the search bar on it and ended up disappointed with the result. – Ivan530 (Talk) 15:51, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What I often do (including today) is Google the book title and go to the Wikipedia Library if the book is available through one of the TWL publishers. I think I initially found the book through Google books. TSventon (talk) 16:09, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Ivan530: please can you respond to MartinPoulter‘s requests from a week ago? They may have been obscured by later discussions. The first paragraph of the Publication history section needs a citation. Citation 2 needs more details; it gives an author, date, and title but it’s not easy for the reader to find what kind of publication it is. If it’s a book, the publisher and page number(s) need specifying and ideally there should be an ISBN or OCLC number. The lead really ought to be more than one sentence. TSventon (talk) 20:23, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@MartinPoulter: @TSventon:: The publication history are from before my edits started (link) and unfortunately uncited (the article only have one source back then). During expansions I added citations for the reprints but unfortunately haven’t found the citations for the amounts of copies sold for the first editions. For the aquatint being painted by Daniell, I remember it being mentioned in citation 5 (Tiffin), though I’ll check it again.
For citation 2 that was copied (diff) from French and British interregnum in the Dutch East Indies during creation of the “Background” section. If it’s dubious here then it will be dubious in there too. But it can be replaced (or added) with “Raffles’ Java as Museum” (precisely on page 70-71) which is suggested reference by TSvention in above. It’s not added in article yet. Added as reference. – Ivan530 (Talk) 21:10, 12 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
For the unreferenced Publication History, I think I narrowed it down to Nineteenth century prints and illustrated books of Indonesia (1979) based on this auction page. Currently I’m waiting for Resource Exchange Request to see if it is correct. – Ivan530 (Talk) 00:17, 13 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I’ve been away from this for so long. @TSventon: I’m impressed with your alternative hook. I’m happy that it’s appropriately formatted and cited in the article with an inline source. My understanding is that since the image is not relevant to the hook, if I pass this hook, the image is not included in this nomination. I have put in citation details for the Carey book and added citations for a couple of sentences. @Ivan530: I think this will be ready to go once the uncited sentence about aquatint paintings has a source. I still think it would be nice if the lede were a bit longer. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:29, 16 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

DYK hook

  • Original hook: … that the illustrations of ruins in The History of Java (example pictured) is more beautiful than it actually is?
  • Tweaked hook: … that the illustrations of ruins in The History of Java (example pictured) are more beautiful than the ruins themselves?

Ivan530 (talk) I don’t want to do a full review, but I don’t think the current hook meets WP:DYKHOOK. First, hook should include a fact, and beauty is more a matter of opinion than fact. Second, The wording of the article, hook, and source should all agree with each other with respect to who is providing the information – if the source is not willing to say the fact in its own voice, the hook should attribute back to the original source as well. In your source, Tiffin gives the opinion of at least to one reviewer, not her own opinion. Third, the article, hook, and source don’t agree with each other. The 19th-century reviewer is not comparing Daniell’s engraving to the 19th-century reality, they are saying that, judging from their representations in the book, the present state of embellished ruin and destruction is incomparably more picturesque and beautiful how they may have been as they came out of the able hand of the architect (quotes via Tiffin’s paper). (Of course the 19th-century reviewer uses excessively convoluted language.) TSventon (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Ivan530: It could be useful to look for further sources, e.g.

  • Forge, Anthony (1994). “Raffles and Daniell: Making the Image Fit”. In Gerstle, C. Andrew; Milner, Anthony Crothers (eds.). Recovering the Orient: Artists, Scholars, Appropriations. Harwood Academic Publishers. p. 109–150. ISBN 9783718653416. I found it by searching for Raffles “History of Java” in Google books, filtered for 20th century. Your location and access may be different. TSventon (talk) 12:25, 11 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]