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VISIONS OF VIETNAM: THE MELCHIOR DEJOUANY COLLECTION
HOANG TICH CHU (1912-2003)
La Haute-Région du Tonkin (Tonkinese Upper Region)
Details
HOANG TICH CHU (1912-2003)
La Haute-Région du Tonkin (Tonkinese Upper Region)
signed and dated 'H T Chu 9⁄50' (lower right of the fifth panel)
lacquer on panel (pentaptych)
each: 90 x 46 cm. (35 3⁄8 x 18 1⁄8 in.) (5)
overall: 90 x 230 cm. (35 3⁄8 x 90 1⁄2 in.)
Executed in 1950
Offered with 1 original sketch and 3 drawings by the artist.
La Haute-Région du Tonkin (Tonkinese Upper Region)
signed and dated 'H T Chu 9⁄50' (lower right of the fifth panel)
lacquer on panel (pentaptych)
each: 90 x 46 cm. (35 3⁄8 x 18 1⁄8 in.) (5)
overall: 90 x 230 cm. (35 3⁄8 x 90 1⁄2 in.)
Executed in 1950
Offered with 1 original sketch and 3 drawings by the artist.
Provenance
Private collection, Asia
Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 December 2021, lot 311
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 December 2021, lot 311
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
Paris, Christie's, The Phoenix Glue and the Broken Silk Thread - Important Vietnamese Artworks from the Melchior Dejouany Collection, 8 June - 13 June 2024
Further details
HOANG TICH CHU, “TONKINESE UPPER REGION”, 1950
OR THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF LACQUER
In this majestic lacquer composition, the artist evokes a landscape that he does not define: a profusion of sugar-loaf hills, terraced rice paddies, houses on stilts; little horses, one brown, the other white; buffaloes and peasants transplanting rice or guiding other buffaloes pulling the plough.
All the naturalistic and phantasmagorical observations of an artist based on his three-month stay in Upper Tonkin from the end of 1948 to the 1949 Têt.
A preparatory drawing executed on site at the end of 1948 and three fragments of tracing (1⁄1 scale) probably executed in Hanoi in 1949, where the work itself would take over 18 months to complete, give us an insight into the painter’s technique: drawing on the motif, then tracing in the studio and execution of the lacquer itself.
Hoang Tich Chu loves colour: yellow, red, white, black, green, silver and gold explode in his work. Abundance does not exclude the subtlety allowed by the specific art of lacquer: the fine differences in tone, the choice between solid and powder, the subtle use of eggshell all support the quality of the work. The painter also makes use of the convexity and concavity of the eggshell fragments: once covered with a layer of lacquer, the convex ones appear white and the concave ones darker. This multiplies the visual effects.
The use of gold, in powder form for the water in the rice fields, or in leaf form for the sky above the mountains, magnifies these two sources of life. Bushes, on the other hand, are reserved for the use of silver powder.
Let’s take a moment to note the double effect of tone-on-tone, eggshell and lacquer on one of the buffaloes, for example. The many shadow effects - mountains and people and buffaloes reflected in the water of rice paddies - and the numerous incisions that, for example, highlight the brown trunks and branches of trees or, elsewhere, golden leaves, are part of a profusion of processes.
A masterful craftsmanship in the service of sublime phantasmagorical naturalism.
An immobile choreography. Subtle.
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Art of Vietnam
OR THE CHOREOGRAPHY OF LACQUER
In this majestic lacquer composition, the artist evokes a landscape that he does not define: a profusion of sugar-loaf hills, terraced rice paddies, houses on stilts; little horses, one brown, the other white; buffaloes and peasants transplanting rice or guiding other buffaloes pulling the plough.
All the naturalistic and phantasmagorical observations of an artist based on his three-month stay in Upper Tonkin from the end of 1948 to the 1949 Têt.
A preparatory drawing executed on site at the end of 1948 and three fragments of tracing (1⁄1 scale) probably executed in Hanoi in 1949, where the work itself would take over 18 months to complete, give us an insight into the painter’s technique: drawing on the motif, then tracing in the studio and execution of the lacquer itself.
Hoang Tich Chu loves colour: yellow, red, white, black, green, silver and gold explode in his work. Abundance does not exclude the subtlety allowed by the specific art of lacquer: the fine differences in tone, the choice between solid and powder, the subtle use of eggshell all support the quality of the work. The painter also makes use of the convexity and concavity of the eggshell fragments: once covered with a layer of lacquer, the convex ones appear white and the concave ones darker. This multiplies the visual effects.
The use of gold, in powder form for the water in the rice fields, or in leaf form for the sky above the mountains, magnifies these two sources of life. Bushes, on the other hand, are reserved for the use of silver powder.
Let’s take a moment to note the double effect of tone-on-tone, eggshell and lacquer on one of the buffaloes, for example. The many shadow effects - mountains and people and buffaloes reflected in the water of rice paddies - and the numerous incisions that, for example, highlight the brown trunks and branches of trees or, elsewhere, golden leaves, are part of a profusion of processes.
A masterful craftsmanship in the service of sublime phantasmagorical naturalism.
An immobile choreography. Subtle.
Jean-François Hubert
Senior Expert, Art of Vietnam
Brought to you by
Ziwei Yi
Specialist, Head of 20th Century Day Sale