Thai Papercut Art - Who Are They?

[talesofthesevenseas]

This is not antique, but I picked up this beautiful Thai papercut art piece in a thrift store for $15. Can anyone identify the two deities(?) in the design? I would really like to know who they are and what their story is. I know nothing about Thai art or mythology. The art piece is big, about 20" tall and the paper image is sandwiched between two sheets of glass, mounted over a shadowbox frame. Click the image to see the details.

[mart]

I have no idea who it is supposed to be !!  But it is nice !!

[KC]

I am limited in what I know about Thai costumes, but the headdress have several names such as mongkut.  But these headdress are not limited to Thailand - the Burmese and Laotians have this as historical headdress as well.  I do know that the straight across the forehead and the curved across the forehead are significant.  (straight is more often represented for male and curved for female.)

[talesofthesevenseas]

Is the dark face of the male (left) figure significant? I saw some demons dark like that. I'm only guessing Thai as the origin, I had not thought about Burma and Laos! As you can see, I'm stumbling about in the dark on this one, but yeah, I love it!

[talesofthesevenseas]

I found out what these are! They are from Thailand and they shadow puppets. They are made of painted buffalo hide, not paper. I am not sure what legend they may depict, but at least I know what they are now.

[mart]

Well,, I would not have thought a hide of any sort !!  Glad you found out where they are from and what they are made of at least !!

[KC]

That's interesting - hide.  Wouldn't have thought of that one.