{"id":3212,"date":"2019-05-26T17:01:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T17:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/?p=3212"},"modified":"2023-09-04T18:50:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T18:50:21","slug":"3212","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/?p=3212","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t\t\t\t\"\"\n\tVu Cao Dam (1908-2000)
\nLe Mandarin (The Mandarin)<\/a>
\nsigned in Chinese and signed ‘vu cao dam’ (lower right)
\nink and gouache on silk
\n145.5 x 71 cm. (57 1\/8 x 28 in.)
\nPainted in 1942
\none seal of the artist\nProvenance
\nAnon. sale, Sotheby’s Singapore, 4 April 2004 Lot 55
\nAcquired from the above sale by the present owner
\nCollection of Mr Tuan H Pham, California, USA<\/a>
\nChristie’s Hong Kong, 24 May 2019<\/a>\n\t“The honours in a career only bring torments and humiliations
\nIn a simple life removed of all one can find freedom.”
\nNguyen Trai (1380-1442)
\nPoint of View\nUpon seeing The Mandarin, Mrs Yannick Vu-Jakober, daughter of the artist Vu Cao Dam, wrote in a letter addressed to me in 2004:
\n“Ce portrait de mandarin a \u00e9t\u00e9 peint vers 1945-46. Il ne repr\u00e9sente pas n\u00e9cessairement son [Vu Cao Dam] p\u00e8re mais comme tout ce qu’il peignait il a surement \u00e9t\u00e9 inspir\u00e9 par des souvenirs. Ma m\u00e8re est heureuse que vous ayez retrouv\u00e9 les traces de ce merveilleux portrait.”\n

(This portrait of a mandarin was painted circa 1945-46. It does not necessarily depict [Vu Cao Dam’s] father, but as with all the paintings he did, he was surely inspired by memories. My mother is happy you sourced this marvellous portrait.)<\/p>\n

In another letter she addressed to me in 2018, she suggested a different date for the execution of this portrait: 1942. This anecdote demonstrates the continuous quest for knowledge required in Vietnamese art – as well as art in general – and its actualisation.<\/p>\n

It is not insignificant that during the occupation of France (1940-45) where the artist had already migrated there 11 years ago, that he created a large portrait of this dignified civil mandarin – from the highest rank, as indicated by the crane set on his garment – and that it is the largest silk listed in Vu Cao Dam’s entire oeuvre of works. The artist illustrates this mandarin with some austerity, and in a very Chinese style. In these times of difficultly, Vu Cao Dam seems to ‘reactivate’ the Chinese influence and questions his real identity. In all beings, the quest for immortality can be accompanied by very base anxieties.<\/p>\n

Vu Cao Dam was the son of the scholar Vu Dinh Thi, founder of the Hanoi School of Interpreters. The face of the man in the portrait resembles that of a bronze work that was cast by the artist circa 1927, entitled Buste de mon p\u00e8re (‘Bust of My Father’), which was exhibited at La fleur du p\u00eacher et l’oiseau d’azur (Musee Royal de Mariemont, 2002 and illustrated; catalogue p164).<\/p>\nJean-Fran\u00e7ois Hubert
\nSenior Expert, Vietnamese Art\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vu Cao Dam (1908-2000) Le Mandarin (The Mandarin) signed in Chinese and signed ‘vu cao dam’ (lower right) ink and gouache on silk 145.5 x 71 cm. (57 1\/8 x 28 in.) Painted in 1942 one seal of the artist Provenance Anon. sale, Sotheby’s Singapore, 4 April 2004 Lot 55 Acquired from the above sale …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,379],"tags":[27,38,28,37,54,79,21],"class_list":["post-3212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","category-fine-art","category-southeast-asian-art","tag-christies","tag-ebai","tag-jean-francois-hubert","tag-the-ecole-des-beaux-arts-de-lindochine","tag-the-school-of-fine-arts-of-indochina","tag-the-tuan-pham-collection","tag-vu-cao-dam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6093,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3212\/revisions\/6093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thucdoan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}