Pegu Cast Bronze of a Cheroot-Smoking Burmese Lady

This fine cast bronze shows an aristocratic Burmese woman in traditional dress seated with her feet pointing behind her an smoking a traditional, thick local cheroot. She wears a tall headdress with jewels and jasmine flowers in her hair. Such tall, cylindrical, box-like chignons or headdresses were not the woman’s actual hair piled up but were attachments made up of actual hair but not the wearer’s.

The bronze is mounted on its original tiered, blackened, wooden stand.

The casters of Pegu, located near to Rangoon, produced finely detailed bronzes of local people engaged in everyday activities, such as this example. Such sculptures emerged at the same time as Burmese painters adopted Western-style realism. Their naturalistic forms drew on European techniques as well as Burmese religious statuary.  Pegu bronzes made mostly for the local expatriate market were exhibited at the various British Empire Exhibitions held in the 1920s and 1940s, both in London but also in India (from where Burma was administered during colonial rule) and Rangoon itself.

Figurines such as these were bought by British administrators and their families in Burma as souvenirs and gifts for friends on their return home. As Fraser Lu (1994, p. 143) says, some examples, especially later examples, barely rise above tourist kitsch, but others, such as the the example here, with its sense of proportion, realism and attention to detail is a minor masterpieces of bronze casting. Such bronzes are testament to the ingenuity and flexibility of Burma’s master craftsmen during the colonial era who were able to switch between producing high quality items for local as well as expatriate consumption.

The sculpture here is beautiful and in fine condition. The bronze has a soft, brown patina.

 

Above: Two images of a collection of Pegu bronzes we previously sold to Singapore’s National Gallery, as displayed in the National Gallery. A cheroot smoking Burmese lady similar to the example here can be seen in the foreground of the second image.