Young Burmese Princes & Princesses
Medium: Photographic print
Photograph of young Burmese princes and princesses at Mandalay, taken by an unknown photographer in the 1890s. This is a group portrait of five children set against a studio backdrop. The girls are clothed in traditional wrap-around skirts known as hta-mein and wear jewelled necklaces and bangles. The boys wear the more voluminous lower garment known as a pahso worn by males. The photograph dates from after the fall of the Burmese monarchy in 1885 as a result of the Third Anglo-Burmese War. However their appearance may reflect codes of royal dress and adornment formerly employed at the court of Mandalay, which were controlled by strict sumptuary laws. The image is from an album devoted almost entirely to Lord Elgin’s Burma tour of November to December 1898. Victor Alexander Bruce (1849-1917), ninth Earl of Elgin and 13th Earl of Kincardine, served as Viceroy of India between 1894 and 1899.