Moung San Win, a Burmese students sent to study abroad during the late 19th century under King Mindon’s state-sponsored educational missions, is identified by ink inscription on the reverse of this albumen CDV, produced at the studio of W. Entrekine, Photographer, No. 4384 Main Street, Manayunk, Philadelphia. The Burmese honorific "Moung" (also romanized as "Maung") designates a young man, placing this subject firmly within the Burmese community and dating the card to the 1870s or 1880s based on the studio's decorative imprint style.
San Win sits on a tasseled upholstered settee, his right arm extended to rest on an ornately carved rococo-revival side table draped with fabric. He wears a dark sack coat over a matching vest and a pleated white shirt with a bow tie, paired with pinstriped trousers and low leather shoes. His long, dark, wavy hair falls past his shoulders, and his expression is composed and direct.
Manayunk, a mill district in Philadelphia's northwest, was home to several portrait studios serving the broader metropolitan area. A secondary inscription in Burmese script appears below the studio imprint on the reverse, along with the printed line "Duplicates furnished at any time."
From the collection of James Lee Soffer
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