Landscape Of Tonkin - Mai Thu - Oil On Canvas, Signed And Dated - Vietnam

Haut Tonkin
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1935, 70 x 95 cm

It's now almost fourteen years that we have carefully followed this painter, exactly since 2011 when we acquired from an auction house that has made Vietnamese artists one of its specialties a painting signed M.Thu, then attributed to Mai Trung Thu (Canvas represented below) .
Other purchases followed in different auction rooms in Paris or in the provinces, with sometimes eccentric attributions such as “unidentified Thai signature”. In defense of the auction houses, it must be recognized that at the time very few works by this artist had circulated, and the rare works signed M.Thu that went under the hammer were attributed to Mai Trung Thu or to Hanoi school.
We now know that his name is Mai Thu and that he signed in turn "THU", "mai thu", in Chinese characters whose pinyin transcription is Méi Qiū (photo attached) and especially “M.Thu”.
Although no geographical indication appears on the canvas or the stretcher, we can safely locate the site in Haut Tonkin, undoubtedly in the Pakha region, as evidenced by the great similarities in atmosphere with another painting by M .Thu which this time we are certain that it represents the Pakha river.