
Dora Tan
Head of Sale, Specialist
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Sold for US$60,312.50 inc. premium
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Head of Sale, Specialist

International Director
The most acclaimed elite silversmith during the second half of the 19th century was Maung Shwe Yon (d.1889) of Rangoon (Yangon). According to the only substantive contemporaneous source in English on the subject of Burmese silver, Maung Shwe Yon exhibited his work at the Calcutta International Exhibition of 1883-4 and the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 in South Kensington. Among his acclaimed artworks are a trophy still possessed by the Royal Engineers Officers Mess in Chatham, U.K. (published in Tilly, The Silverwork of Burma, 1902, pp.18-9), and an offering bowl now in the collection of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco (2019.1.a-b).
When presented with this superlative ceremonial offering bowl, it is difficult to imagine a better hand at smithing. Between the repoussé hammering of rounded figures, the adept manipulation of depths of plane to create textured landscape elements and ornate frames within each scene, the creation of floral arabesques behind most figures by stippling the negative ground, and the refined chasing of raised details, a consummate level of mastery is showcased with every technique. However, Maung Shwe Yon's fame may not be wholly attributable to his status as a peerless artist, but also to the support he received from three apprenticing sons, establishing what grew to be the single most successful commercial silversmithing enterprise: Maung Shwe Yon & Sons (later Mg Shwe Yon Bros).
The bowl depicts ten scenes from the harrowing experiences of Patacara before she became an eminent arhat and one of the Buddha's foremost disciples. Her story is included within the Therigatha ("Verses of the Female Elders"), a set of poems recounting the path to enlightenment of many elder nuns during the lifetime of the Buddha. Maung Shwe Yon's figural modelling sensitively captures the grief-stricken Patacara as she suffers through a chain of tragedies, with the premature deaths of her husband and two young children. Taking to the wilderness with only her long hair covering her naked body, she eventually finds solace in the Buddha's teaching on the inevitability of death, which sets her on the path to her own enlightenment.
Published:
Owens, Burmese Silver Art, pp.169-73, no.S115, figs.4.97-4.107.