Shan Burmese Rice Container

Woven Bamboo & Wood Container for Cooked Rice

This tall, elegant vessel is of finely woven cane and carved wood. It was used to hold sticky and cooked rice. The spiky wooden decoration on the top serves as a handle but also could have been meant as a spoon rest. Such containers were used in Eastern Burma as well as in Northern Thailand. The container is footed almost in the manner of a Thai porcelain footed serving dish. The high elevation can be accounted for by the fact that it would have been sat on the floor of a dwelling and the diners would have also sat on the floor around it.

The four ‘fins’ that comprise the foot are curved but otherwise plain. The crown-like wooden decoration on the top is carved and decorated with dark red lacquer.

Small cane lugs on the body of the vessel and on the lid were for a cord to allow the container to be suspended when not in use.

A similar example was among the items presented to the United States by King Chulalongkorn in 1904 as part of the Siam Exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the items if which were then presented to the US. The US example is now in the Smithsonian and is illustrated in McQuail (1997, p. 145). An illustration of a similar vessel is illustrated in Fraser-Lu (1994, p. 297).

The container is in excellent condition.

Fraser-Lu, S., Burmese Crafts: Past and Present, Oxford University Press, 1994.

McQuail, L.,

Treasures of Two Nations: Thai Royal Gifts to the United States of America, Smithsonian Institution, 1997.

UK art market