A vision of sublime elegance and rapturing beauty, Les chrysanthèmes (Lot 1014) is a spectacular and exceedingly rare silk masterpiece that was painted during the foundational pinnacle of Vu Cao Dam's career. The present lot radiates a mesmerizing sense of tranquility owing to the artist's harmonious use of colors, gentle touch, and skillful brushwork. Delicately painted, this composition embodies Vu Cao Dam's technical mastery in handling silk as a medium. Executed before 1940, Les chrysanthèmes is a foundational work that hails from the brief, but significant period before the artist shifted to the oil medium.  Silk paintings by Vu Cao Dam are amongst the most rare and exquisite of mediums, as the artist's early career was focused primarily on sculpture, while his later career in oil painting.

The fragrant chrysanthemum flower represents joy, harmony and filial piety and is often displayed in the home during Tết (Vietnamese New Year) holidays. Revered for the flower's ability to bloom in bright tones during the autumn, when many other flower species wither, the chrysanthemum has come to symbolize vitality and tenacity in Chinese culture, inspiring to scholars, poets and artists for centuries. Though the artist utilizes solid pigments to depict these vibrant blooms, the translucent fabric of the silk enhances the diaphaneity of his muted wash of colors, adding an ephemeral quality to the composition. He employs a subtle palette of gentle white gouache, bubblegum pink, and soft yellow to highlight the blossoms, deep, bottle green to pain the leaves and branches, and an iconic shade of taupe for the negative space in the background. Apart from the present work, only 15 unique floral compositions painted on the silk medium by Vu Cao Dam have surfaced at auction in the past 16 years - only less than 5 of which are of chrysanthemums specifically.

Born the son of a Catholic family, Vu Cao Dam was raised with Confucian values and a strong affinity to Chinese culture. Vu Cao Dam's father was well educated, trained in Chinese calligraphy and shared his great love and knowledge of Chinese literature with his son. Although Vu Cao Dam would only arrive in Paris 1931, having been awarded a scholarship to study in Paris, he heard stories of France from his father who established himself as a translator for the French colonial government and was sent to Paris in 1889.

Even though Vu Cao Dam graduated from the 2^nd class of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Hanoi, he would come to be associated with the pioneering artists such as Le Pho, Mai Thu, and Le Thi Luu who eventually settled in France. Vu first exhibited his works in Paris in 1931 at the Exposition Coloniale, including busts in bronze, a medium in which he excelled him since the beginning of the sculpture department at the Ecole. However, silk painting came to dominate Vu's artistic output till the late 1930s during the first 10 years of his settlement in France, partly due to the lack of available metal material for casting. He would devote himself to oil painting later– many of his paintings reflect the influence of French modernists and post-impressionists such as Marc Chagall and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

《菊花》（拍品編號1014）是武高談創作生涯巓峰時期的作品，優雅秀麗，引人入勝，是極為罕見的絹畫傑作。武高談用色柔和，落筆輕柔，展現嫻熟精妙的筆觸，讓《菊花》瀰漫靜謐的氣氛，本作的細膩畫工也體現了武高談駕馭絹畫的能力。本作繪於1940年之前，出自武高談轉入油畫創作前的時期。武高談從藝之初以創作雕塑為主，後來轉入較多產的時期（1940年以後）就集中創作油畫，他一生中用於創作絹畫的時間非常短暫。

芬芳菊花代表喜樂、和諧和孝順，越南人過新年時，經常在家中擺放菊花。菊花為人所重，因為入秋時百花枯萎，萬物凋零，唯有菊花迎風怒放。中國文化中菊花象徵活力和堅韌，歷年來啟發了不少詩人墨客藉詠菊明志。雖然武高談以實色顏料繪畫盛開的菊花，但透明的絹面賦予柔和色彩亮麗的透明感，讓畫作洋溢如夢飄渺的氣氛。武高談運用粉白、嫩粉、淡黃等淡雅色調描繪花朵，深綠畫枝葉，背景則塗成標誌性的灰褐色，突顯主題。除本作外，過去16年只有15幅武高談的花卉絹畫登上拍場，而且少於五幅是描繪菊花的。

武高談生於天主教家庭，但自幼學習儒家思想，熟悉中國文化。他的父親學識淵博，擅中國書法，熟悉並熱愛中國文學，武高談亦受其熏陶。1931年他憑獎學金負笈巴黎，但他早已從父親口中得知法國的情況。他的父親曾擔任法國殖民政府的翻譯，1889年曾被派往巴黎工作。

武高談是河內中南半島美術學院的第二批畢業生，與同樣定居法國的黎譜、枚中栨和樂氏琉並列為越南的藝術先驅。1931年他的作品在巴黎舉行的殖民地博覽會展出，當中包括半身銅像，銅雕是他自進入藝術學院雕塑系之初就非常擅長的媒介。然而，1930年代末之前，在他定居法國的頭十年中，他的作品以絹畫居多，部分原因是鑄銅物料在當地來之不易。後來，他轉而投入於創作油畫，他的許多油畫都反映了馬克・夏加爾、皮耶・奧古斯特・雷諾瓦等法國現代畫家和後印象派畫家的影響。