A pair of Four Sacred Animals jars by artisan Pham Anh Dao from the Bat Trang pottery village have been auctioned off at a price of US$275,000.

A pair of Four Sacred Animals jars by artisan Pham Anh Dao from the Bat Trang pottery village was auctioned at US$275,000.

The first professional art auction in Vietnam took place on Saturday in Hanoi gathering a variety of local and foreign artists, critics and art lovers.

The hand-made jars were produced in 2010 and given a starting price of VNĐ900 million ($40,300). Until now, Dao was the first Bát Tràng artisan to successfully handcraft two jars, each weighing 500kg. They measured 2.7m in height and 1.3m in diameter, with cracked enamel styling as of ancient ceramics. Dao spent more than a year making the jars by hand and took 70 hours to bake them.

Paintings entitled Happiness by Hoang Phuong Vy, Uplands Fairies by Dao Hai Phong and Along the Red River by Quach Dong Phuong were auctioned at VNĐ65 million ($3,000), VNĐ95 million ($4,500) and VNĐ150 million ($7,500), respectively.

An altar from the late 19th century which had belonged to painter Le Thiet Cuong was sold for VND143 million ($7,000).

Tran Quoc Khanh, CEO of Lac Viet Company, the organiser of the event, said this was the first professional auction in Việt Nam, held in line with current legal provisions.

“This kind of auction aims to honour the value of labour and the creativity of the authors as well as establishing a transparent market for domestic artworks,” he said.

“We guarantee the quality of the artworks, their origin and uniqueness. The transparent auction also prevents tax loss for the government.”

Before, artists often sold paintings at galleries. Sometimes, artworks were auctioned for charity purposes, so these auctions did not reflect the true value of the items.

Art critic Phan Cam Thuong said the art auction would help establish a transparent and popular art market in Vietnam.

“Now you buy an artwork for its true value, not because you want to do charity work,” he said. “So, a professional art auction also protects the value of Vietnamese artworks in the international market.”

VNS