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Lot Essay
MAI THU, LA FEMME AU COLLIER ROUGE (THE WOMAN WITH THE RED NECKLACE), 1945
OR THE QUESTION WITHOUT AN ANSWER
This exquisite work, painted in 1945 in Vanves, just south of Paris, was created by a 39-year-old artist born near Haiphong in northern Vietnam. Two places, two influences - joined here by the thread of talent.
By this time, Mai Thu was firmly established in France. Since arriving in 1937 he had exhibited widely, and his works were admired and collected by both private patrons and the French state.
Here, he portrays a young woman in three-quarter profile, dressed and coiffed in the Tonkinese style. Her attention is fixed on a necklace of red beads. Light make-up softens her features, yet her expression conveys a subtle tension, reinforced by the hands that clasp the necklace.
She examines this necklace, whose colour and material already carry multiple meanings.
The choice of object is rich in meaning. In Vietnamese tradition, red symbolises warmth and joy; to “pull the red silk thread” meant to choose a wife. Red walls (yang) and golden roofs (yin) defined the imperial palace at Hué, where Mai Thu once lived. Pearls, meanwhile, are among the “eight jewels” offered to Buddha and carry long associations with feminine beauty.
This single red necklace thus becomes the key to the painting’s polyphony of signs, where symbols and meaning echo each other in delicate play.
The artist sets the figure against a restrained background of whites, greys, and beiges, eliminating distraction and focusing our gaze on the dialogue between subject and object - clearly the theme of this work.
He contrasts the warm light on the young woman’s face and hands, set in contrast with the dark mass of her hair and necklace.
This interplay of visual hierarchies directs the viewer toward the triangle formed by head, hands, and necklace - the strategic core of the composition. It is a device that Nguyen Phan Chanh would have admired for its economy of ink.
The necklace provokes an inner reverie in the young woman, felt by artist and viewer alike, though never fully understood. It is a meditation on desire, memory, and the fragility of the moment: life itself, by existential necessity.
It is a meditation at once beautiful and infinite: an artist, far from his homeland but intimately close to the soul of his subject, questioning himself in the hope of never finding an answer.
A profoundly beautiful work.
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Art of Vietnam
OR THE QUESTION WITHOUT AN ANSWER
This exquisite work, painted in 1945 in Vanves, just south of Paris, was created by a 39-year-old artist born near Haiphong in northern Vietnam. Two places, two influences - joined here by the thread of talent.
By this time, Mai Thu was firmly established in France. Since arriving in 1937 he had exhibited widely, and his works were admired and collected by both private patrons and the French state.
Here, he portrays a young woman in three-quarter profile, dressed and coiffed in the Tonkinese style. Her attention is fixed on a necklace of red beads. Light make-up softens her features, yet her expression conveys a subtle tension, reinforced by the hands that clasp the necklace.
She examines this necklace, whose colour and material already carry multiple meanings.
The choice of object is rich in meaning. In Vietnamese tradition, red symbolises warmth and joy; to “pull the red silk thread” meant to choose a wife. Red walls (yang) and golden roofs (yin) defined the imperial palace at Hué, where Mai Thu once lived. Pearls, meanwhile, are among the “eight jewels” offered to Buddha and carry long associations with feminine beauty.
This single red necklace thus becomes the key to the painting’s polyphony of signs, where symbols and meaning echo each other in delicate play.
The artist sets the figure against a restrained background of whites, greys, and beiges, eliminating distraction and focusing our gaze on the dialogue between subject and object - clearly the theme of this work.
He contrasts the warm light on the young woman’s face and hands, set in contrast with the dark mass of her hair and necklace.
This interplay of visual hierarchies directs the viewer toward the triangle formed by head, hands, and necklace - the strategic core of the composition. It is a device that Nguyen Phan Chanh would have admired for its economy of ink.
The necklace provokes an inner reverie in the young woman, felt by artist and viewer alike, though never fully understood. It is a meditation on desire, memory, and the fragility of the moment: life itself, by existential necessity.
It is a meditation at once beautiful and infinite: an artist, far from his homeland but intimately close to the soul of his subject, questioning himself in the hope of never finding an answer.
A profoundly beautiful work.
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Art of Vietnam