Completed days before Ismail Zain’s untimely death, this large figurative painting portrays one of Sultan Mansur Shah’s five marriages during his reign in Malacca from 1459 to 1477. Strategic matrimonial alliances were common at the time to strengthen state control and the Sultan’s unions included those with the Princess of Majapahit as well as with  Hang Li Po, supposedly a princess from the Ming dynasty in China. In the painting, the royals are depicted in front of an ornate pelamin, or wedding dais, as part of a traditional Malay wedding ceremony alongside kompang players and bunga manggar. Floral and decorative elements can be seen throughout the rest of the work, a recurring feature of the artist’s paintings in the 1980s. Using the technique of silkscreen and collage, he juxtaposes photographs of morning glory flowers and lace-doily motifs against geometric symbols of cut-out grids and controlled paint stripes, reflecting traditional culture in collision with the modern condition.