Bowl

This is a Burmese offering vessel. It has a conventional base consisting of a bowl integral with its stand and foot, built of coiled spilt bamboo lacquered red inside and decorated with green and white spangles of glass set in 'thayo' (a putty of lacquer sap mixed with clay, sawdust or ash), and gilded. The cover or lid is made of the same materials but modelled in the form of a crested bird.

Although the shape of the lid is unusual the function of such gilt and glass-inlaid vessels is not in doubt: it was invariably devotional. They were used to hold donations of food or other articles and offered to monks or set, usually in pairs, before the principal Buddha image in a shrine.

Gilt and glass-inlaid reliefwork in lacquer was a speciality of Mandalay and this vessel was probably made there. However, if this is correct, it must have been made only a few years after the foundation of Mandalay by King Mindon in 1857 since by 1870 this vessel was in Brighton.

This item is on display in the James Green Gallery of World Art, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

Notes drawn from 'Visions from the Golden Land, Burma and the art of lacquer', R. Isaacs & T.R. Blurton, British Museum Press, 2000, pp79-80.