Exceptional Three-Piece Burmese Silver Tea Set & Matching Tray

This solid silver, ornate, three-piece tea set comprising a tea pot, a sugar bowl and a milk jug, and a matching tray is very much a product of colonial Burma. Each piece is chased and repoussed and engraved with scenes from Burmese folklore, featuring courtly figures in traditional dress and weapon-wielding ogres. Each piece stylistically belongs to each of the others including the tray; each piece is by the hand of the same silversmith and each of the four pieces was made together and has remained with each other since being made.

The teapot is a stunning, sculptural work. The spout is cast and worked as a mythical bird or karaweik head with little arms towards the base of the spout. The particularly domed, hinged lid is surmounted by a solid-cast figure in Burmese dress. The handle comprises an arched ogre in courtly dress. A tiger is included among the decorative figures around the body of the tea pot, all beneath arched frames, and the lid is decorated with a rabbit, a crow, a deer and a tiger. The base is engraved with a peacock – this is decorative only and not a maker’s ‘mark’ as has been imagined by some. The silver has not been economised on – it weighs almost one kilogram.

The sugar bowl has two handles in the form of naga serpents. The milk jug has a naga handle and a small karaweik spout. Both are also decorated with figures in Burmese dress beneath arched frames. Both the bowl and the jug are engraved on their bases with decorative star or flower motifs.

The interiors of the sugar bowl and milk jug are gilded. The interior of the tea pot is without gilding.

The tray is extraordinary. The handles comprise pairs of crocodiles with joined, twisted tails. The raised sides are repoussed with ogres and other figures in Burmese dress, and the interior base of the tray is engraved with a pair of nagas entwined and surrounded by scrolling foliage. It alone weighs more than a kilogram.

Burmese silver tea sets are illustrated in Fraser-Lu (1989, colour plate 4), Green (2022, p.88 – also sold by us), and Owens (2020, p. 112).

The set here is in excellent condition.