HÀ NỘI — Two paintings by the late Vietnamese artist Nguyễn Huyến have been sold at a Hong Kong auction for almost US$22,000.

The artwork went under the hammer yesterday at Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction house.

Huyến’s Portrait of an Old Vietnamese Gentlemen, lot 304, dated 1952 and painted with charcoal and red chalk on paper, sold for $2,800 but it was his second piece that fetched the most money.

Nue De Mademoiselle Hải Dương (Miss Hải Dương’s Nude), lot 301, dated 1937, and painted with ink and gouache on silk laid on paper, was sold for $19.100.

This confirms the large range of influence the Vietnamese art market has around the world, especially in Hong Kong.

The decision of auctioning off Huyến’s artworks was made by Sotheby’s after many of his paintings were displayed and sold at an exhibition at Vietnamese Chọn’s Auction House.

Hoàng Ngọc Hưng, head of Chọn’s Auction House, said the late painter’s Dáng Ngọc (Natural Beauty), a rare nude lacquer painting, dating back to 1967, previously displayed at the house’s 9th auction, was sold for $45,000, out pricing other lots at the exhibition.  

“However, we should only see it as a nice surprise, as we need more paintings to be set for auction to end up finding a reasonable average price for Nguyễn Huyến’s artwork,” said Hưng.

He added on the last week of April, Chọn’s will select half of the painter’s works, kept by eight collectors to go to auction, including The Portrait of Vietnamese Women (painted in 1938, priced at $600), The Portrait of Mademoiselle Vân (dated 1940, priced initially at $700), Seeking a Friend (dated 1944, priced at $1,000), The Bờ Market (dated 1961, priced at $600).

Huyến was born in the northern province of Bắc Ninh in 1915 and died in 1994. — VNS