(VOVworld) – Praising folk culture and preserving written materials of Vietnam are the purposes of the ongoing exhibition entitled “Vietnamese folk painting – Trio painting sets”.

A photo in Maurice Durand’s collection featuring a scholar returning home to thank ancestors after achieving academic honours (Photo: VGP)

The French Academy of the Far East and the French Development Agency opened the exhibition on Monday at L’Espace at 24 Trang Tien Street. 15 Vietnamese traditional paintings were selected from Henri Oger’s “Technical Encyclopedia” and Maurice Durand’s “Folk paintings”. The “Folk paintings” collection features 400 paintings collected by Maurice Durand and his colleagues since the 1950s which reflect colorful daily activities of Vietnamese people. The paintings, which have preserved almost of their intact features, represent the respect of Maurice Durand to Vietnamese culture and history.  

The exhibit is the first time wood carvings illustrating poem Luc Van Tien composed by Nguyen Dinh Chieu have been published. The coloured paintings were made in the early 1890s by a Hue royal corporal upon a request of a French naval officer.