New Insights on Phap Lam Hue (Hue Painted Enamels) under the Nguyen Dynasty

Tóm tắt

Among the cultural heritage of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945) in Hue, the former royal capital of Vietnam, phap lam Hue (Hue painted enamels) stands out. Phap lam Hue is architectural, pottery and art objects with copper core body coated with layers of enamels in different colors. Due to their high resistance to external forces as heat and rain and the passage of time, these enamels were used to adorn roof tops and ridges of royal palaces. They also appeared in decorative panels depicting scenery, flowers and vegetation, birds and literary works on wall panels between upper and lower roofs of palaces, or on gates in royal palaces and tombs in Hue. The study of phap lam Hue has been carried out over the past 20 years, but until now researchers have not established a consensus on several issues such as: Which type of technique does phap lam Hue belong to? Is it called phap lam or phap lang?[1] Even the question whether phap lam Hue were manufactured in Hue, Vietnam, or elsewhere in Asia is still controversial. New documented objects, observations and study trips to museum collections in Europe and China during the last years make it possible to give further information about phap lam Hue.

[1] In Chinese, this kind of material is call 琺瑯 (falang in pinyin, phap lang in Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation). However, from the Nguyen Dynasty time (1802-1945, the Vietnamese was used the term phap lam (琺  ) instead of phap lang (琺瑯).