ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS DE L'INDOCHINE. - Lot 275

ECOLE DES BEAUX ARTS DE L'INDOCHINE. Eight-leaf double-sided Coromandel lacquer screen with polychrome decoration of a palace scene, the back decorated with a pair of Mandarin ducks and a pheasant through lotuses. The upper part decorated with rectangular reserves depicting lacustrine landscapes. Indochina, circa 1935-1940. Dimensions per sheet: 176x38.2 cm. Total dimensions: 176x305 cm. (Misses). Provenance: French private collection. Acquired in Hanoi in the 1930s by the Nadaud family, then sold in 1981 to the current owner's family. Very close stylistically to Chinese productions, this type of Coromandel lacquer screen was commonly produced at the Indochina School of Fine Arts in the late 1930s, notably under the impetus of the artist Nguyễn Văn Bái (1912-1999), who specialized in this technique. Sometimes unsigned, as is the case here, several similar examples are nevertheless known to us, sometimes featuring Vietnamese-inspired decoration, sometimes typically Chinese. Some of them are also stamped "MBA" for Maison des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine.