Product Description

Antique Burmese Basket 4                             SOLD

Material: Rattan, metal handles, wood, lacquer
Style: Inle Lake, Shan State, Burma
Size: Height 35 cm, Diameter 45 cm
Order Number: MHSABBL4

The body is very fine and delicate basketry in a fancy diamond pattern called kyudayan gwet in Burmese.  The rim and foot are lacquered black. Although rare today, juxtaposing smooth lacquered surfaces with bare basketry is an old Burmese decorative technique. It was popular for large bamboo matting for the walls of houses.

After the First Anglo-Burmese War (1823–1826), Major Henry Burney was stationed at Ava as the British Resident of the East India Company at the Burmese Court of King Bagyidaw from 1829 to 1837. In May 1832 he wrote an essay ‘Some Account of the Lacquered or Japanned Ware of Ava’ in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. He considered Shan boxes superior to those made in Bagan.

There is a similar example of basketry in Burma and the Art of Lacquer, Ralph Isaacs and T. Richard Blurton, River Books, 2000, page 208.

Early – mid 20th century.

Please ask the price (or make an offer).