In this post we have pictures of two lacquer paintings.
The first (with full details below) is printed on page 57, book “Pham Hau’s Lacquer”, 2019 by author Pham Gia Yen — son of painter Pham Hau. So, this is definitely a original painting by Pham Hau.
PHAM HAU (1903 – 1994). Rice transplanting at dawn. Lacquer. 36×57 cm. (Printed in the book “Pham Hau’s Lacquer”, 2019, Fine Arts Publishing House, author Pham Gia Yen – son of painter Pham Hau)
The second is about to be auctioned at Sotheby’s online session on July 29, 2022.
Information (original copy) about the upcoming autioned painting (online) at Sotheby’s on July 29, 2022
Pham Hau (1903 – 1995). Planting Rice. Lacquer on board. Signed in Chinese and stamped with the artist’s seal (lower right). Unframed: 45.5 by 59.5 cm; 17 ⅞ by 23 ½ in. Framed: 61 by 74.5 cm; 24 by 29 ⅜ in.
Not discussing the color, sharpness of details (due to shooting media and print quality), just observe with the naked eye, through photos, we can see that these are two different paintings. The two paintings differ in dimension. The painting “Rice transplanting at dawn” printed in the book “Pham Hau’s Lacquer” has the dimension of 36×57cm. Lacquer painting “Planting Rice” is about to be auctioned at Sotheby’s, dimension 45.5×59.5cm. Both paintings are not dated.
The first has been confirmed to be the original. And the second about to be auctioned has many things to compare. In terms of technical expression, visual language, and sensory interface, this is hardly a work of Pham Hau.
According to the book “Pham Hau’s Lacquer” — In 1934, right after graduating from the Indochina Fine Arts College (1929-1934), Pham Hau returned to Dong Ngac village to continue researching the application of traditional lacquer on large scale paintings. With the first contract: production of 50 lacquered cigarette boxes introduced by Mr. Victor Tardieu, Pham Hau had some capital…
This lacquer workshop of Pham Hau has many employees. With applied lacquers, several applied lacquer products are produced in more than one copy. For example, the four-panel lacquered screen “Nine carp in a lake”. This screen also has several copies. One of them, made around 1939-1940, was also sold at Sotheby’s in March 2019 for more than 1 million USD. At that time, it was Pham Hau’s first work to reach the threshold of 1 million USD (for a public transaction).
Back to the painting about to be auctioned online at Sotheby’s, according to a close source, the painting “Planting Rice” was refused to enter the official auction of two auction houses in France. Now, it appears at this online session of Sotheby’s.
In this session, in addition to the beautiful paintings of Vietnamese artists, there are a few other paintings that need to be reviewed. Viet Art View will review in the next posts.
This small article is like a sharing with art lovers, not to warn some collectors not to buy or mean anything to the venue. Because true collectors often filter information well, they will hesitate and consider carefully when buying. Some have other purposes but still bid as usual because their customers may not be well informed about everything… But Sotheby’s, no matter how wide and big its coverage in the international arena, they are still a place of “transportation trading” of art products belonging to “hobby”. They also have their own arguments. Therefore, the last thing to decide whether or not remains with the buyer.
As for a small group of collections with enough money to buy without the time, lack of meticulous expertise, they all have their own consultants, very knowledgeable about paintings.
This is really professional…
By Viet Art View
Copyrights belongs to Viet Art View
