Shan princess ‘returns’ to Myanmar

By Ma Thanegi -June 13 - 19, 2011

Sao Ohn Nyunt V (1932) by Sir Gerald Kelly.

ON the day in late April that Prince William married his Princess Kate, another princess, after 79 years in exile, took the first step in her long journey home from London to Myanmar.

She was Sao Ohn Nyunt, the Shan princess who will remain forever young and forever beautiful, caught in the timelessness of art in a portrait by Sir Gerald Kelly, a British artist who, as a favourite painter of the British Royal Family, was knighted in 1945.

Thet Paing Soe, an avid art lover and businessman, said it took many months of negotiation with the prestigious Maas Gallery of Mayfair, London, before he could bring her home.

Maas Gallery is owned by Rupert Maas, a well known and highly respected figure in international art circles dealing in Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite, Romantic and Modern British paintings.

Sir Gerald Kelly’s painting, measuring 96.5 x 80.6 centimetres (38 x 31.75 inches) and titled Sao Ohn Nyunt V, was signed and dated 1932.

Before Maas Gallery obtained it in 2003, the painting was part of a private collection in the United States, but the owner had lent it to a museum so that many people could appreciate it.

“The deal was finalised on April 29,” Thet Paing Soe said. “It’s not that I have a lot of money to spare but ever since I saw a reproduction in a book when I was a boy, [Sao Ohn Nyunt’s] face has haunted me.

“When the painting arrived I sat in front of it the whole night, just gazing, gazing and gazing at her. For me, it was a dream come true; my joy is immeasurable.”

Sao Ohn Nyunt has enraptured many.

In this painting, she sits sideways on a green velvet cushion, glancing over her shoulder at the viewer with a look of demure inquiry. She wears the court costume of a thin, white silk jacket and a pale pink, light green and creamy yellow silk htamein (woman’s skirt) in a design popular in those days.

Her hair is swept up in the neat, high chignon of the times, and a single gardenia is tucked into its base; the gardenia is such a typical flower of Myanmar that it adds a special kind of poignancy to the portrait.

Sao Ohn Nyunt’s serene beauty, her dignified demeanour and the shy expression give her the look of a mysterious princess out of legend, and has earned her the title of the Mona Lisa of Asia.

She was very real, however, with as much of a royal background as any princess in a fairytale. Her grandfather Sao Hkun Hseng was the sawbwa (Shan king) of Hsibaw from 1866 to 1902, and his Maha Devi was a princess royal of the Konbaung dynasty (1752-1885).

Sao Ohn Nyunt’s cousin Sao Ohn Kya, who married her older sister, became the ruler of Hsibaw from 1928 to 1938. When he attended a conference in London that lasted from November 1931 to January 1932, Sao Ohn Nyunt accompanied him and her sister.

In a climate far colder than her native Shan hills she was also, as Sir Gerald Kelly wrote, “bored to tears” at one official reception where they met.

Kelly, then 52, had been to Myanmar more than 10 years before, and he was much taken with the beauty of the people and the land. Here in the heart of London, he unexpectedly rediscovered the beauty of Myanmar, this time personified in this delicate and lovely princess.

He immediately asked if she would sit for him. After obtaining permission from her cousin Sao Ohn Kya, Kelly began five portraits of her and also took photos and made sketches so that he could continue to work after she went home.

Kelly did about 20 portraits of the princess over the course of the next 30 years. Three of them – titled Sao Ohn Nyunt VI, Burmese Pearl and Burmese Silk – were made into posters and their sales numbered more than 50,000 copies. They are still on offer at many print shops as well as online.

Back in Myanmar, in 1934 Sao Ohn Nyunt married Sao Khun Mong, who was a son of Sao Kawng Kiaw Intaleng, sawbwa of the eastern Shan State town of Kengtung from 1895 to 1935.

In one letter Kelly wrote to Sao Ohn Nyunt in 1962, he said, “You brought me luck, because the things I painted from you are among the best pictures that I ever produced.”

Thet Paing Soe said he hopes to collect more paintings by Myanmar artists or scenes of Myanmar, that are now scattered all over the world.

Despite the fact that Sao Ohn Nyunt VI was the creation of a British painter working in London, Thet Paing Soe said he thought such artworks “belong” in Myanmar.

“They should be here in Myanmar, this is where they belong. By next year I hope to retire and focus my energy on creating a small museum of ‘Things Myanmar’,” he said.

He said that among his collection was a full set of the first series of 18 hand-tinted engravings collectively known as Eighteen Views, made by engraver T Fielding from the drawings of Lt Joseph Moore and published in two series in 1825 and 1826.

“Moore made these illustrations just before or during the First Anglo-Burman War of 1824. I read somewhere that from the first series, one full set was presented to the British Royal Family.

“Another Myanmar painting I treasure is the heartbreaking scene of the exile of King Thibaw by Saya Chone, titled Pardaw Mu. There are so many of our arts and antiques that should come home, like Sao Ohn Nyunt,” he said.

Ref:mmtime