The silk work depicts a portrait of ‘a little boy sitting at a table eating a meal with a very cute and lovely figure’. This is a very rare subject in Le Pho’s works.
If Le Pho created still-life, it was a synthesis of flowers and fruits; The most common are poppies, roses, chrysanthemums, and peaches. If describing the character, it was usually a young girl, mother and child, sometimes the whole family. Baby portraits (only he or she) are extremely rare in Le Pho’s works.
The first impression when looking at the silk is love. Love originates when we see a very familiar image in the little family member who is always the focus of care. When encountering a portrait of a lovely baby wearing an extremely beautiful hat, chubby figure, sitting cross-legged, eating a delicious meal by himself… surely in each of us, can’t help feeling our hearts calm down, our eyes staring intently, filled with affection.
In fact, Le Pho really deserves as a famous artist. Whether it was made on any material from lacquer, oil or silk, it was very beautiful. Excellent technique, perfect material handling skills helped him to make the best expression of his creative intentions. He uses material properties to create surface aesthetics, so that it is the most perfect in shaping, composition, and lines. This makes the work reach the highest emotional level for the audience. With lacquer it is deep, quiet, splendid, fanciful; with oil it is often the expression of substance in shaping flesh, plants, flowers. With silk it is the grace, softness in form, in strokes; The smoothness of the soft colors are deeply ingrained in the silk fibers.
‘A boy sitting at the table’ may had been created in the late 30s of the last century. At that time, Le Pho had settled in France. During this period, he created many silk works with themes based on religious legends and family love. Nostalgia for Vietnam, the new pace of life in France makes the artist’s mood have certain concerns. ‘A boy sitting at the table’ with a bowl of rice in his hand with the attitude of eating well is probably for his earnestly nostalgia, an image of his hometown. This is also the period when he created the extremely famous silk work ‘Nostalgia for native land’ which achieved a price of approximately 20 billion VND in 2018.
And finally, in the auction on March 14th 2022 at Aguttes, France, the price of more than 3 billion VND for the work of silk ‘A boy sitting at the table’, dimension 28,5×22,6 cm, really deserved the value that the work bring to us.
By Viet Art View