Pair of ceremonial mosquito net hangers from East Java, or Madura, probably 19th to 20th centuries

These wooden mosquito net hangers are carved in the form of a dragon and are gilded. They were probably used over a bed or a seating area. The mosquito net hangers were made and used in East Java or Madura in southern Indonesia. Mosquitoes carry a number of diseases but their role in transmitting malaria was identified in 1898 by Ronald Ross (1857–1932), a British bacteriologist.