From May 23 to June 2, 2023, Aguttes offers its second edition of the Asian Weeks of the year. As the only auction house in the world so specialized in the market of painters who received this double Asian and Western education at the beginning of the 20th century, Aguttes contributes once again to the highlighting of the artists of the Indochina School of Fine Arts. This 38th opus of Asian Painters, Major Works will honor the first classes trained in Hanoi by Inguimberty, Jonchère, Alix Aymé, under the direction of Victor Tardieu, such as Lê Phổ, Mai Trung Thứ or even Vũ Cao Đàm.
Sur la terrasse (Lê Phổ) immortalizes the beauty and grace of the women of his country through a technique that blends the West and the Far East. If the medium made of ink and colors on silk is specific to the teaching of the Indochina School of Fine Arts, the posture of the model borrows from the Italian Mannerists of the 16th century. The serpentine figure accompanied by the movement of the scarf pays homage to the European masters he admired during his travels in the early 1930s. The composition is built in a pyramidal fashion and is punctuated by movement: the creeping foliage climbs while the little boy’s arm undulates. The wooden balustrade of the terrace provides perspective and completes this refined setting with Asian resonance. The Olympian vision of Indochina in the 1940s brought Lê Phổ noticed by the gallery owner Romanet, who exhibited it in Algiers at the Galerie Pasteur from 1942 to 1944. This work was part of the exhibition entitled Maï-Thu, Le Pho, Vu Cao Dam, Peintures Indo-Chinoises.
