Artisan · Sơn mài · Hạ Thái village

Đỗ
Thị Hương

Eggshell inlay · Second generation · At the tray since 1994

“Every shell breaks differently. That is the drawing.”

Her seal, a small square beside her husband's on every work the two make together.

Craft: Eggshell inlayBoxes, vessels, the moons
Workshop: Hạ TháiWith Nguyễn Văn Thái
Learned from: Her motherwho inlaid for the painters
Signature: Shell sorted by curvelaid fragment by fragment
On LangSoul: 3 worksTakes commissions

01 — The maker

Three mornings for one moon

She sorts eggshell the way other people sort seeds: by curve, by thickness, by what the light will do to it later.

Fingers sorting fragments of duck eggshell by shade on a dark tray, in the Hạ Thái lacquer workshop, dark wooden drying cabinets behind, palette of brown-black, cinnabar and dull gold

A tray of eggshell mosaic half laid into wet black lacquer, in the Hạ Thái lacquer workshop, dark wooden drying cabinets behind, palette of brown-black, cinnabar and dull gold

She sorts eggshell the way other people sort seeds: by curve, by thickness, by what the light will do to it later.

Hương grew up in Hạ Thái in a house that inlaid for the painters of the city — her mother was known for the whites in a generation of lacquer pictures that now hang in museums. She married into the lane and brought the trays of sorted shell with her.

On a panel the eggshell is hers: the moon in Moon over Hạ Thái took her three mornings, fragment by fragment, the flat pieces at the centre and the curved at the rim so the cracks radiate. On the smaller works — boxes, vases — she carries the whole piece from first coat to polish.

She says the craft is mostly waiting, and that the waiting is the part people cannot buy.

A thumb pressing a shard of eggshell flat into the lacquer, in the Hạ Thái lacquer workshop, dark wooden drying cabinets behind, palette of brown-black, cinnabar and dull gold

A brush drawing the first black coat over finished eggshell inlay, in the Hạ Thái lacquer workshop, dark wooden drying cabinets behind, palette of brown-black, cinnabar and dull gold

02 — The works

Three works from the bench

All lacquer works

Lidded box, gold leaf

Box · Edition of 10

$420

Eggshell vase, tall

Vessel · Unique

$560

Tea caddy, eggshell lid

Caddy · Edition of 10

$310

All lacquer works

03 — Commission

Hương takes small commissions

A box to a size, a vessel for a particular shelf, a pair to match. Tell us what you have in mind and we will carry the conversation to the workshop, with photographs at every stage.

Start a commission

A letter from Hạ Thái

“The lid is in the cabinet with its eighth coat. I have kept a fragment of the shell back for you, so you can see what the white was before.”

— to a collector, August 2026.

Start a commission

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