Sơn mài · Lacquer · Unique
Moon over Hạ Thái
Sơn mài — Vietnamese natural lacquer, built up in many thin layers and polished back by hand until the buried colours surface.
Nguyễn Văn Thái
Twelve layers of natural sơn ta lacquer, tapped from trees in Phú Thọ, each one sanded by hand under running water before the next is laid. The moon is crushed duck eggshell, pressed piece by piece into wet lacquer; the water beneath it is 24-karat gold leaf, buried under three further coats and then polished back until it surfaces like light through silt.
Thái began this panel in the dry season, when lacquer cures slowly and evenly. It took three months. It will keep deepening for decades.
- Materials
- Natural lacquer, eggshell, gold leaf on jackfruit-wood board
- Technique
- Sơn mài — 12 layers, wet-sanded and hand-polished
- Dimensions
- 80 × 60 cm · 31.5 × 23.6 in · 3.4 kg
- Edition
- Unique work · Signed and sealed on the reverse
- Made
- Hạ Thái, Thường Tín · 2026
The making
Three months, in four movements
Vietnamese lacquer cannot be hurried. Each coat must cure in humid air, be sanded back, and be laid again. What looks like a flat surface is a dozen buried paintings.
I
The board
Jackfruit wood, dried for a year, wrapped in cloth and sealed with the first coats of raw lacquer and clay.
II
The inlay
Eggshell pressed into wet lacquer, fragment by fragment. Gold leaf laid where the water will later shine.
III
The layers
Twelve coats of coloured lacquer, each cured for a week and sanded under running water before the next.
IV
The polish
Polished back by palm and charcoal until the buried moon and the gold rise to the surface.
From the same village
