Ratings and values of paintings by Luong Xuan Nhi

If you own a work by Luong Xuan Nhi or one based on the artist, and would like to know its value, our state-approved experts and auctioneers will offer you their appraisal services.

Our specialists will carry out a free appraisal of your work, and provide you with a precise 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 Luong Xuan Nhi  

The artist Luong Xuan Nhi leaves behind a distinctive body of work, composed mainly of drawings and paintings. He is Franco-Chinese. Now, the prices of his works are rising under the auctioneers' hammer.

The price at which they sell on the art market ranges from €200 to €96,240, a significant gapbut one that speaks volumes about the value that can be attributed to Luong Xuan Nhi's works. He is especially prized by buyers from Hong Kong, China and France.

In 2021, an ink on silk on canvas entitled The Knitting, dating from 1941, sold for €590,000, a world record to date for the artist, while it was estimated at between €160,000 and €200,000. His value has exploded in recent years.

Order of value from a simple work to the most prestigious

Style and technique by artist Luong Xuan Nhi

In Luong Xuan Nhi's painting, the surface retains this function of balance, clarity, ordered stability.

But it no longer relies on the rigor of line or the solidity of volume: it is articulated around a controlled fluidity, a measured suppleness, a constructed transparency. The light, discontinuous brushstroke deposits color without fixing it, without saturating it.

The drawing, discreet, sometimes effaced, does not delimit: it accompanies the form, letting it emerge. Color, treated in washes or matte solids, organizes the composition by zones, by breaths, without ever breaking the continuity of the pictorial field.

In portraits of young women, market scenes or urban views, the motif does not impose itself on the eye: it settles, at a distance, in a calm frontality. The diffused light evens out the planes, absorbs the contrasts, and unites the figures with their setting.

This construction by fusion rather than opposition is found in Jeune femme au foulard violet (fig. 1), where the face, treated without shadow or relief, seems suspended between two flat tints of color, one for the background, the other for the garment.

The gaze, fixed, peaceful, does not seek to question, but to stand. The drapery, reduced to a few supple lines, does not describe the fabric: it restores its lightness.

The space, with no depth, no marked perspective, is conceived as a continuous field, where each form finds its place without tension. The slow, stable rhythm is based on the repetition of curves, on the balance of colored masses, on the restraint of gesture.

 So, removed from both narrative and expression, Long Xuan Nhi's painting asserts a logic of silent construction, where the figure, far from being central, becomes part of a whole, integrated, soothed, held.

Luong Xuan Nhi's life

In Luong Xuan Nhi's career, academic training retains this function of rigorous line, mastery of form, clarity of vision.

Pupil of the first graduating class of the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, founded in Hanoi in 1925 by Victor Tardieu, he received instruction based on observation, construction and the discipline of drawing, alongside other artists such as Alix Aymé or Thoung Lan Nguyen.

Born in 1914, he was one of a generation of Vietnamese artists who sought to combine European techniques with local traditions. Very early on, he adopted silk painting, which he adapted to a modern aesthetic, based not on rupture but on simplification, stability and fluidity of composition. 

From the 1930s onwards, he exhibited at salons organized by the School, then abroad, where his work was quickly identified by its restraint, economy of means and attention to motif.

In the decades that followed, he in turn taught, directed the École supérieure des beaux-arts du Viêt Nam, and took part in his country's artistic life without ever inflecting his style.

Thus, unaffected by school effects or variations in fashion, Luong Xuan Nhi's career is part of an assumed continuity, based on discretion, precision and poise - an art without emphasis, without rupture, but of constant coherence.

Focus on Young Girl with Lotus, Luong Xuan Nhi  

In Young Woman with Lotus (fig. 1), the composition retains this function of calm, stability, measured frontality.

But it doesn't rely on a posture effect or the staging of the subject: it is organized around a silent balance between figure, object and space.

The face, oval, smooth, with no marked expression, barely stands out from the background, in a gentle continuity between skin, clothing and background.

The flower, held in both hands, is neither accentuated nor stylized: it extends the line of the arms, responding to the curve of the body. The color, applied in transparent washes, settles in without contrast, in a restricted range of beiges, browns and pale pinks. The plain, depthless background doesn't frame: it envelops.

No element breaks this unified surface. The light is diffuse, even, without direction or intensity: it illuminates without shaping. The gaze, calm, does not catch, but lets itself be gazed at. The motif tells nothing, suggests nothing: it stands.

Then, removed from effect, narrative, immediate expression, Luong Xuan Nhi's image imposes a form of quiet obviousness, a restrained construction, where the figure is not a center but an element among others, attuned to the lines, hues, silence of the whole.

Luong Xuan Nhi's imprint

In Luong Xuan Nhi's work, silk painting retains this function of continuity, transmission, visual balance.

But she is no longer content to apply an inherited model: she reorganizes the surface, simplifies forms, imposes a new logic of construction, based on restraint, frontality, clarity.

At a time when modernity often expresses itself through rupture or tension, her work asserts a measured stability, a constant discretion, a silent rigor.

The figures, centered, held, isolated in calm flat tints, impose a presence without narration, without pathos, without effect. The image doesn't tell the story: it holds its ground. This restraint becomes a position.

In teaching, in exhibitions, in the institution, this position asserts itself with the same constancy. Luong Xuan Nhi's style, identifiable without being rigid, had a lasting influence on Vietnamese painting in the decades that followed, notably in his way of combining precision of drawing, mastery of emptiness and absence of insistence.

Thus, removed from any demonstration, Luong Xuan Nhi's imprint is inscribed in a sober, regular line, without apparent brilliance, but of a held coherence, whose correctness continues to act, without noise.

Luong Xuan Nhi's place in Vietnamese painting

In Vietnamese painting of the XXᵉ century, Luong Xuan Nhi's work retains this function of discreet landmark, mastered continuity, formal coherence.

But it is not part of a logic of avant-garde or rupture: it occupies a median, stable position, between heritage and adaptation.

Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, active in the early institutions of the Republic, he embodies a generation that seeks less to overturn frameworks than to reformulate them, simplify them, make them compatible with a modernity without violence.

His painting on silk, rigorous, appeased, became a model of graphic clarity and pictorial holding.

In a history marked by political tensions, aesthetic shifts, changes of reference, his work maintains a line. No slogan, no militant image, no imposed style: a balanced surface, a posed motif, a held gesture.

Then, removed from the most visible manifestations, Luong Xuan Nhi's place is established differently - not in rupture, but in continuity, in slow construction, in the lasting accord between form, support and gaze.

Recognizing the artist's signature

Luong Xuan Nhi his works most of the time, in French and Chinese, 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 of course many copies.

Knowing the value of a work

If you happen to own a work by Luong Xuan Nhi 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 ad hoc information about it.

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