NO LIVE BIDDING FOR THIS LOT. - Lot 21

NO LIVE BIDDING FOR THIS LOT. PLEASE CONTACT THE AUCTION HOUSE VU DANG BON (active at the beginning of the 20th century) [VIETNAM] A monk and three women in an interior. Ink and colors on silk. Signed lower left. Stamped lower right. 64.5 x 90.5 cm (Slightly faded, micro stains) A label affixed to the back of the work indicates that it was framed in Hanoi (rue Maréchal Pétain). Provenance Jean Walter Collection Appointed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1907, Jean Walter began his career as head of P.T.T. (Postes, télégraphes, téléphones) for the southern region of Tunisia in 1907. For the organization of communications services in Morocco, the French Administration appointed him head from 1913 to 1927. Put at the disposal of the French Ministry of the Colonies, Jean Walter was sent to Saigon. He is the only active senior metropolitan civil servant to be awarded the silver Medal of Honor of the French Post Office and Telegraph. The collector probably acquired this work from Vu Dang Bon Vu Dang Bon during his years of service in Vietnam. Unfortunately, information on the artist is very incomplete. Vu Dang Bon appears in a list of Vietnamese artists who graduated from the Hanoi School of Fine Arts founded by Victor Tardieu. Listed as a student in the third graduating class (1927-1932), painting section, he studied with Le Thu Luu (1911-1988). Vu Dang Bon used inks and colors on silk, the preferred medium of Vietnamese artists in the thirties. He poetically depicts in pastel tones a scene in which a Buddhist monk appears to be reading a text on parchment to three young women who stare at him intently. It's quite possible that these three Vietnamese women are presenting this pretty box either as an offering, or as an object used to provide answers to questions. It's not uncommon for bonzes to perform divinations of this kind. White lilies, a symbol of innocence, pure love and femininity in Vietnam, in a blue-and-white porcelain vase, are treated with a confident, masterful brushstroke. Two pretty columns are adorned with lotus flowers. The work is signed in Latin letters and stamped in red ink. The artist crystallizes the dual Western and Far Eastern influences that mark his work.