The oil-on-canvas View from the Hilltop

HA NOI (VNS) — An artwork by noted Vietnamese painter Le Pho has set an auction record for a Vietnamese artist at Christie's International, the Bloomberg reported.

The oil on canvas Nhin tu Dinh Doi (View from the Hilltop) was sold for US$840,000 in Hong Kong during the weekend.

Regarded as one of the greatest Vietnamese painters of the 20th century, Le Pho studied and then taught at the Indochina College of Fine Arts (now Viet Nam Academy of Fine Arts). He moved to France in 1937 and painted the artwork the same year.

"Unlike many of his works, including his more iconic works populated by elegant ladies, in View from the Hilltop, Le Pho presents to us a world conspicuous by the absence of people," wrote Jean-Francois Hubert, senior consultant for Vietnamese art at Christie's.

"The landscape overwhelms the canvas, and is given rare eminence as Le Pho honours the landscape of his birth."

The previous Vietnamese auction record of $391,000 was set in May 2013 by Nguyen Phan Chanh's artwork La Marchand de Riz (The Rice Seller). — VNS