Scroll painting: Lotus flowers

Southeast Asian Collection

Accession Nr.: 59.87.1
Type: woodblock print; hanging scroll
Date of production:
1950s
Place of production:
Materials/Techniques: paper, woodblock printing, hand coloured, mounted as hanging scroll
Dimensions: height: 131 cm
width: 42 cm
A pair of ducks swimming under lotus flowers. With Chinese writing in the upper right corner.

Tứ bình is a 16th-century Vietnamese folk painting form that arranges four images with a common theme into a single series. Made in the Hàng Trống workshop in Hanoi, these pictures were usually made for the Tết, or Vietnamese New Year, similar to Đông Hồ prints, and were very popular among the people. The themes of the quartets all revolve around different states of things and change, such as the ages, four female musicians with different instruments, four important careers of the human or the four seasons.