Le Pho’s Femme du Mandarin (The Mandarin’s Wife) at ‘Nucleo Storico’ Exhibition, Venice Biennale 2024.

Le Pho (Vietnam, 1907-2001)
Femme du Mandarin (The Mandarin’s Wife)
signed and dated ‘LE-PHO 1931’ (lower right)
oil on canvas
81 x 130 cm. (31 ⁵⁷/₆₄ x 51 ³/₁₆ in.)
painted in 1931
on seal of the artist

Exhibited
Drouot, 19 December 1996 (illustrated, front cover).
Netherlands, Scheveningen, VSB Circus Theater te Scheveningen, De schilderkunst van Vietnam, 1-30 November 1997.

On 16 December 1996, for the very first time in Vietnamese art history, a Vietnamese masterpiece by Le Pho featured on the front page of a catalogue. Later, at Drouot’s auction on 19 December 1996, its estimate was EUR 8000 and finally the hammered price released at EUR 25,000.