Rating and value of paintings, drawings and watercolours by Mai Thu

If you own a work created by Mai Thu or after the artist, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services. 

Our specialists will work to carry out a free appraisal of your work, and will provide you with an accurate estimate of its value on the current market.

Then, should you wish to sell your work, we will direct you to the best possible arrangement to obtain the optimum price.

Rating and value of the artist Mai Thu

The artist Mai Thu leaves behind a distinctive body of work, composed mainly of drawings and paintings. He is French-Vietnamese. Now, prices for his works are rising under the auctioneers' gavels.

The price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €40 to €2,148,900, a significant gap but one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to Mai Thu's works. He is especially prized by buyers from Hong Kong, Vietnam and France.

In 2021, an oil on canvas entitled Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong was sold for €2,148,900, while it was estimated at between €805,840 and €999,240. Its value has exploded in recent years.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique by artist Mai Thu    

In Mai Thu's painting, silk retains this property of capturing light and softening forms, giving figures a diffuse, subtle presence.

But it's at the cost of a shift: no longer limited to being a simple support, it becomes a vibrant space where colors infuse themselves in delicate gradations. The line almost disappears, but what remains are the variations in tone that shape the face, the folds of a garment, the shadow of a gaze.

In the portrait of a child (fig. 1), ink and gouache melt onto silk in a translucent weave, where each nuance unfolds without break. The form is guessed at rather than defined, bathed in a light that skims over and dissolves it.

The figurative element persists, but is fragmented into infinitely nuanced touches, absorbed into the very fabric of the painting. 

This dissolution of contours will become more pronounced in subsequent compositions. In Mother and Child (fig. 2) and Young Girl with Lotus (fig. 3), painted at the same time and with the same impetus, the pictorial material seems to merge with the very weft of the silk.

The boundaries between light and shadow become blurred, shapes melt into a network of subtly superimposed hues that absorb the subject more than they define it.

Then, stripped of its classic delimiting function, the line fades away in favor of a modeling where every color transition becomes a modulation of light.

The world of these paintings knows only muted hues, muted harmonies where the chromatic range narrows around half-tones and diffuse reflections.

This aspect of Mai Thu's painting is related to a desire to neutralize overly marked contrast, to favor a tonal continuity that preserves the softness and interiority of the figures.

"I don't paint light directly," Mai Thu seems to suggest, "but I let it shine through in the very material of the silk."

Mai Thu's life  

In Mai Thu's career, academic training retains this property of structuring the eye and refining the gesture, but it comes at the price of a shift: no longer confined to the strict discipline of Western drawing, it is imbued with a sensibility specific to Vietnamese art, where the line softens and extends into a continuous breath.

Born in 1906 in Hanoi, he was one of the first generation of students at the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, founded by Victor Tardieu and Joseph Inguimberty.

From his earliest works, he explored the potential of silk painting, diverting its traditional use to make it the vehicle for a more personal and elaborate expression. 

This assimilation of diverse influences would become more pronounced after his move to France in 1937. In the years that followed, he exhibited regularly and developed a style in which the softness of the wash dialogues with the rigor of the composition.

His portraits of children, mothers and young girls reflect an attachment to the evocation of a silent harmony, where each gaze seems suspended in an almost meditative immobility.

In these works, which mark his pictorial language, Vietnamese tradition is no longer content to be an inheritance; it is reinvented through a modern approach, where silk becomes the site of a subtle vibration of color and light.

Thus, detached from academic conventions, Mai Thu inscribes his art in a fragile balance between memory and renewal, and it is in this tension that he finds his deepest expression.

Focus on La Maternité, Mai Thu

In Maternité, painting on silk retains this property of suggesting softness and intimacy, but it is at the cost of a shift: no longer limited to a simple support, it becomes a space of resonance, where light melts into the very texture of the fabric.

The maternal figure disappears as a distinct individual, but subsists through the tangle of supple lines and hushed nuances that define her presence. 

The child curled up in his mother's arms seems to emanate from the background itself, absorbed in a diaphanous atmosphere where contour fades in favor of a fluid continuity between body and space.

In this work, which embodies the essence of Mai Thu's style, the Vietnamese tradition of painting on silk undergoes a mutation: flat tints give way to a network of delicately superimposed tonalities, creating an elusive modelling, where every shadow, every fold of the garment, every curve of the face seems to be born of an imperceptible breath.

This dissolution of line will become more pronounced in his later works. In his purest scenes, color no longer merely defines form, but becomes vibration, transparency, effleurement.

Then, detached from strict figuration, the image reaches an almost meditative dimension, where time fades away in favor of a sensation of silent plenitude.

Mai Thu's imprint on his period

Mai Thu is a well-known and appreciated artist in Vietnam, with critics taking notice of him during his lifetime. His work blends Eastern and Western influences, which today is highly appreciated by the art market. To this day, most of his works are held by private collectors.

In Mai Thu's art, painting on silk retains this ability to suggest delicacy and transparency, the infinite modulations of light on matter.

But it's at the cost of a shift: it's no longer limited to a faithful transcription of reality, it becomes the site of a silent transfiguration where each figure, each motif, is inscribed in a hushed, almost suspended vibration.

The line remains, but it becomes lighter, embracing the contour without enclosing it, while the color seeps into the fabric of the support, dissolving into light, imperceptibly shaded layers. In his compositions, space is no longer constructed by perspective, but by a play of subtle balances, where emptiness dialogues with form and imposes a new rhythm.

Then, freed from its classical function, painting on silk no longer coincides with the meticulousness of line for which it was primitively intended, it is now devoted to defining a fluid space, to making forms vibrate in a continuous field, as the vaporous touch has the charge in the pictorial element.

Today, the artist stands out on the international auction scene, with her works reaching record amounts in recent years. Although his rating has fallen slightly in recent months, his world ranking has risen since 2024.

73.7% of the artist's sales take place in France, and 97.8% of the lots that are auctioned belong to the drawing-watercolor category. His quotation was low and stable from 2000 to 2015, and has risen sharply since then (following in the footsteps of artists such as Alix Aymé and Vu Cao Dam) then dropped slightly.

Recognizing the artist's signature

Mai Thu signs his works most of the time, in French and Vietnamese, and marks his watercolors with a seal. However, it is essential to have your work appraised to be sure of its originality. What's more ; there are naturally many copies.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by Mai Thu or after the artist, don't hesitate to request a free appraisal using our form on our website.

A member of our team of experts and certified auctioneers will contact you promptly to provide you with an estimate of the market value of your work, as well as any relevant information about it.

If you wish to sell your work, you will also be accompanied by our specialists in order to benefit from alternatives to sell it at the best possible price, taking into account market inclinations.