In December 2022, Villageoises parmi des bananiers (Villagers Among Banana Trees) by Nguyễn Gia Trí sold for US$1.08 million at a French auction. The six-panel work became the most expensive Vietnamese lacquer painting ever sold publicly, a milestone not only for the artist but for the medium itself.
The sale was another reminder of something art historians have long known: few artistic mediums are as distinctly Vietnamese or as technically demanding as lacquer painting.
Yet despite its international recognition, lacquer remains a paradox. The material is expensive, the process laborious, and the number of artists working seriously with traditional lacquer is shrinking. At the moment the world is paying attention, Vietnam risks losing the people capable of carrying the medium forward.
Before it became fine art
Long before lacquer entered galleries, it was already woven into Vietnamese life.
For centuries, lacquer was used to protect and decorate temple sculptures, ancestral altars, religious objects, furniture, and water puppets. Derived from the sap of the Rhus succedanea tree, known locally as sơn ta, lacquer was valued for its durability in Vietnam’s humid climate.
The material itself is notoriously difficult to work with. Raw lacquer is harvested by making incisions into the tree’s trunk. Exposure to the sap can cause severe skin irritation, and every stage of production—from harvesting to application—requires specialized knowledge.
Across Asia, lacquer has long been associated with prestige. Japanese lacquerware dates back thousands of years and remains one of the country’s most respected craft traditions. Chinese artisans developed intricate carved lacquer techniques centuries ago. Vietnam inherited this broader Asian lacquer culture, but transformed it into something different: painting.
A product of the colonial school
Modern Vietnamese lacquer painting emerged during the French colonial period.
In 1925, the École des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine (EBAI) was established in Hanoi. While the school introduced European academic training, several teachers encouraged students to explore local materials rather than simply imitate Western oil painting.
A turning point came in 1927 when French painter Joseph Inguimberty invited lacquer artisan Đinh Văn Thành to teach at the school. What followed was a decades-long experiment that transformed lacquer from a decorative coating into a fine-art medium.
By 1938, lacquer studies had become compulsory for painting and sculpture students.
Among those students was Nguyễn Gia Trí. His generation accomplished something remarkable. Rather than treating lacquer as craft and oil painting as “high art,” they elevated a traditional material into a modern artistic language. In doing so, they challenged a colonial hierarchy that often positioned European artists above Vietnamese artisans.
Painting from back to front
Part of lacquer’s appeal lies in the fact that it works almost opposite to oil painting. With oil, artists build an image from front to back. What appears on the surface is largely what remains visible. Lacquer demands a different way of thinking. Artists begin by preparing a wooden panel known as vóc. Cloth soaked in lacquer is stretched across the surface before multiple layers of lacquer, clay, and sawdust are applied. Each layer must dry under carefully controlled humidity before being sanded and polished.
Artists first sketch the composition onto the prepared surface using chalk or pencil. Major forms and outlines are then painted with lacquer, establishing the structure of the work before additional materials are introduced.
Dozens of layers may be required before painting even begins. The image itself is then constructed through successive layers of coloured lacquer, eggshell, mother-of-pearl, gold leaf, silver leaf, and metallic powders. Rather than adding highlights on top, artists often bury them beneath later layers. The final image emerges through sanding.
As artists grind away the surface, hidden layers gradually reappear. Colours reveal themselves unexpectedly. Gold begins to glow. Eggshell fragments create distinctive crackled textures. The process contains an element of chance that cannot be fully controlled.
The Vietnamese term for lacquer painting—sơn mài—literally means “polished” or “ground lacquer,” a reference to this essential act of revealing rather than covering.
Why lacquer is so expensive?
The cost of lacquer painting comes not only from materials but from time.
Natural sơn ta remains significantly more expensive than conventional paints. Gold and silver leaf are frequently incorporated into works. Humidity-controlled drying periods can stretch production over months. Some paintings require dozens of separate layers before completion.
Unlike canvas painting, where a mistake can often be painted over, errors in lacquer frequently require restarting large portions of the process. The result is a medium that is difficult to scale.
Beyond Indochina shadows
Today, lacquer painting remains one of Vietnam’s most internationally recognizable artistic contributions. Works by Nguyễn Gia Trí, Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm, Phạm Hậu, and Trần Văn Cẩn continue to attract collectors worldwide.
Yet the future of the medium depends on more than auction records.
The generation that transformed lacquer into fine art emerged from a moment of experimentation, when artists were willing to push beyond inherited traditions and reimagine what the material could become.
The challenge facing Vietnam now is different. Lacquer no longer needs international validation. A million-dollar auction result has already proven its value.
What it needs is a new generation of artists willing to work through its complexity.
Because lacquer painting is not merely a relic of the colonial art school or a symbol of cultural heritage. It remains one of the few mediums that Vietnam can genuinely claim as its own—a visual language developed from local materials, local knowledge, and local history.
The question is no longer whether the world recognizes Vietnamese lacquer.
It is whether Vietnam will continue producing the artists capable of advancing it.