Artisan · Gốm sứ mỹ nghệ · Bát Tràng village

Phạm
Văn Đức

Potter · Sixth generation · At the wheel since 1985

“The kiln opens at dawn because the glaze was decided at dusk.”

His seal, pressed into the foot of every bowl before the first firing.

Craft: CeramicsCeladon, ash glaze
Workshop: Bát TràngThe family kiln by the river
Learned from: His fatherwho kept the glaze recipe through the lean years
Signature: Celadon cracklethat takes on tea
On LangSoul: 5 worksTakes commissions

01 — The maker

A glaze his family has kept for six generations

Đức's celadon recipe is not written down. It is in the ash of a particular rice straw, a clay from one bank, and a fire that must be starved for a day.

Hands centring white river clay on a kick wheel, wet clay catching the light, in a Bát Tràng pottery workshop, brick kiln door and shelves of bisque ware behind, sage greens and warm greys

A potter peering through a spy hole at the orange flame inside a brick kiln, in a Bát Tràng pottery workshop, brick kiln door and shelves of bisque ware behind, sage greens and warm greys

Đức's celadon recipe is not written down. It is in the ash of a particular rice straw, a clay from one bank, and a fire that must be starved for a day.

The family has fired on the same plot since the nineteenth century, and the celadon — men ngọc, jade glaze — is the reason. It needs a reduction fire, long and starved of oxygen, and a potter who can read the colour of the flame; too much air and the green turns yellow, too little and it goes grey.

Đức throws thin, chooses from each kiln load himself, and sells the rest to the village market. The crackle in his glaze is deliberate: it opens in the cooling and takes on tea over years, which he considers the beginning of the bowl’s life rather than a flaw.

A potter lifting one bowl from a shelf of a freshly opened kiln load, in a Bát Tràng pottery workshop, brick kiln door and shelves of bisque ware behind, sage greens and warm greys

The Red River bank at Bát Tràng, boats and kiln chimneys in haze, in a Bát Tràng pottery workshop, brick kiln door and shelves of bisque ware behind, sage greens and warm greys

02 — The works

Five works from the bench

All fine ceramics works

Celadon tea bowl, crackle glaze

Bowl · Edition of 20

$180

Moon jar, ash glaze

Jar · Unique

$720

Pair of celadon cups

Cups · Edition of 24

$120

Blue-and-white plate, lotus

Plate · Edition of 12

$260

Bottle vase, ash glaze

Vase · Unique

$440

All fine ceramics works

03 — Commission

Đức takes commissions by the kiln load

A set of bowls for a long table, a jar to a size, a glaze you have seen on another piece. Tell us what you have in mind and we will carry the conversation to the kiln. Two to four months, depending on the firing calendar.

Start a commission

A letter from Bát Tràng

“Your twelve are in the kiln. We open on Thursday at first light. I will send a photograph of the door before it is unbricked.”

— to a restaurant in Copenhagen, June 2026.

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