Philippa Iles
Senior Sale Coordinator
Lot 40
Maung Maung Gyi(Burmese, 1890-1942)Mandalay Palace Moat, Burma
7 – 15 July 2025, 12:00 BST
Online, London, Knightsbridge£600 - £800
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Rhyanon Demery
Head of Sale
Polly Cornthwaite
Senior Cataloguer
Maung Maung Gyi (Burmese, 1890-1942)
Mandalay Palace Moat, Burma
signed and dated 'Ma Maung Gyi/1919' (lower right)
watercolour
32 x 48.6cm (12 5/8 x 19 1/8in).
unframed
signed and dated 'Ma Maung Gyi/1919' (lower right)
watercolour
32 x 48.6cm (12 5/8 x 19 1/8in).
unframed
Footnotes
It is said that Maung Maung Gyi spent several years in England as a young man to study Western painting. However, his greater influences in painting may have come through exposure to British painters, such as B.H. Wiles and Robert Talbot Kelly, whom he encountered in Burma or whose works he saw there. With regard to Maung Maung Gyi's influence in Burma, this was largely as a watercolour painter who travelled around Burma capturing its scenes in the plein air style. The plein air mode of painting later became very common among Upper Burma painters such as Saya Saung and Ba Thet in their early works.
Not many works by Maung Maung Gyi have survived, possibly on account of a house fire during World War II. However, four of his watercolours are currently in the collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and it is believed that the National Museum of Myanmar own some of his paintings.