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Woman's jacket
Unknown - Enlarge image
Woman's jacket
- Place of origin:
Burma (made)
- Date:
early 1860s (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Cotton, embroidered and hand-quilted with yellow silk
- Museum number:
5623(IS)
- Gallery location:
In Storage
This neatly tailored white cotton jacket, flaring gently over the hips with its distinctive triangular headed pendants, would have been worn by a fashionable Burmese woman during the second half of the nineteenth century. It was obtained in 1867 from Prome, a town in central Burma lying on the Irrawaddy River, which had recently fallen under British control. Britain annexed Burma stage by stage through the 19th century until in 1885 the entire kingdom came under British rule. Known as an ein-gyi this jacket is embroidered and quilted in yellow silk with wave and twisted rope patterns typical of Burmese design. It would have formed an ensemble, as shown, with a wrap skirt (9756 IS) and breast cloth (IM.10-1909).
