Burmese Silver Tea Pot

Fine Exhibition Silver Tea Pot

This extraordinarily ornate solid silver teapot perhaps was not intended for use but more as a display piece. Most probably, it was made to be shown at an exhibition to demonstrate the silversmith’s skills. Such exhibitions were organised by the colonial authorities in India and Burma to promote the skills of ‘native’ craftsmen.

At almost one kilogram in weight, the teapot is noticeably heavy in the hand. It is ornately cast, repoussed, chased and engraved with Burmese costumed figures in high relief. The handle is in the form of an ogre, the spout in the form of a

hin-tha and the lid finial is Burmese lady in traditional garb.

The teapot sits on four finely-cast zoomorphic feet which emerge from an unusually elaborate multi-layered frieze.

Burmese teapots of this form are known but this is the most elaborate example that we have encountered.

Fraser-Lu, S., Silverware of South-East Asia, Oxford University Press, 1989.

UK art market