Sơn mài · Lacquer · Unique
Four-panel screen, lotus
Bình phong — a folding screen; here four lacquer panels on a Đồng Kỵ ironwood frame, gilded under the lotus.
Trần Quang Minh
The largest lacquer the village makes, and the work Minh’s family has done for four generations: four jackfruit boards, fourteen coats each, the lotus laid in gold leaf and buried under three coats before being polished back where it should shine. The frame is Đồng Kỵ ironwood; the hinges are brass from Đại Bái.
Six months in the cabinet and on the bench. It divides a room the way a tree divides a garden.
- Materials
- Natural lacquer, gold leaf, eggshell, on jackfruit boards; ironwood frame
- Technique
- Sơn mài — 14 layers; gold buried and polished back; brass hinges
- Dimensions
- 4 panels, each 45 × 170 cm · 180 × 170 cm open · 70.9 × 66.9 in · 34 kg
- Edition
- Unique work · Signed and sealed on the reverse
- Made
- Hạ Thái, Thường Tín · 2026
The making
Six months, in four movements
A screen is four panels that must agree with one another across a hinge. The gold has to come back at the same depth on all four.
I
The boards
Four jackfruit boards, dried a year, sealed with cloth and clay.
II
The gold
The lotus laid in leaf across all four panels and buried.
III
The coats
Fourteen coats each, cured and sanded back under water.
IV
The frame
Polished back together; framed in ironwood; hinged in brass; sealed on the reverse.
From the same village
