Carved Wooden Standing Pair of a Burmese Couple

This half-life sized pair of images of a Burmese couple in traditional dress has been carved from wood and decorated with polychrome. Each is very well carved and observed. The faces are sensitively rendered. Both have their arms raised as if in dance pose.

There is much detail in the dress. The female figure has a traditional hairstyle with a comb holding her coiffure in place. The fingernails and toenails are all carefully rendered.

Each stands barefoot on a tiered plinth.

Wood carvers in colonial Burma did sometimes carve decorative figures using (then) contemporary Burmese people as subjects. See Schafer (2014, p. 169) for a related female example, possibly by the same carver as the pair here, and possibly even the same model. (The published example is missing fingers and has significant paint loss.)

It is likely that the plinths have been repainted. There are small breaks and re-glueings, and the index finger on the left hand of the female figure is missing. But these are minor relative to the age, size and fineness of the sculptures.

Almost certainly, the pair have been in the UK since colonial times.