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Titled ‘Conversation D'élégantes au Jardin’ (Conversation of Elegant Ladies in the Garden), the 1939 painting was offered at Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in Hong Kong on Monday.
The auctioneer opened bidding at HK$7 million ($892,100), and after 14 bids, the hammer fell at HK$23 million ($2.93 million), about 17 percent above the auction house’s high estimate of HK$19.6 million ($2.5 million), according to Sotheby’s. Including fees, the work fetched HK$28.96 million ($3.69 million).
Sotheby’s said the result set a new auction record for Dam and made the painting the most expensive work by a Vietnamese artist ever sold at auction.
The previous record was held by ‘Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong’ (Portrait of Miss Phuong) by Vietnamese artist Mai Trung Thu, which sold for HK$24.375 million ($3.11 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2021.
The ‘Conversation D'élégantes au Jardin’ was previously auctioned at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2008, when it sold for about $262,900. The painting’s latest sale price was therefore about 14 times its 2008 price.
Painted in 1939 during Dam’s years in Paris, the work was described by Sotheby’s as a landmark achievement from the early period of his career and a high point among his celebrated silk paintings. The artist created the 85.6-by-114.5-centimeter work using ink and gouache on silk.
According to Sotheby’s, the painting demonstrates Dam’s use of the long-established Asian silk medium to express a modern view of Vietnamese identity. Dam graduated from the Indochina College of Fine Arts in Hanoi in 1931 and moved to France later the same year.
He was among the first-generation artists to graduate from the college, alongside Le Pho, Mai Trung Thu, and Le Thi Luu, whose works have commanded high prices on the international auction market. Dam passed away on July 23, 2000 at the age of 92 in France.
Titled ‘Conversation D'élégantes au Jardin’ (Conversation of Elegant Ladies in the Garden), the 1939 painting was offered at Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction in Hong Kong on Monday.