Mai Thu was among the first cohort to graduate from the École des Beaux Arts d’Indochine. As a result of his Western art education and having made France his home from 1937, Mai Thu melds Western aesthetics into his vignettes of Vietnam’s upper class; through the depiction of figures reminiscent of classical Western portraiture, yet tinged with a Vietnamese content. The strong Vietnamese pictorial identity is also the result of remaining faithful to one medium - gouache and ink on silk - as demonstrated in this portrait.

The present work engages the viewer with the serenity and sensual delight of a woman dressed in a traditional áo dài. The pious figure set against the neutral background accentuates the burst of intense colour that emanates from rose. The precision of black ink defines her facial features from the soft tone of the delicate moment, while the translucent scarf framing her face permeates an ethereal glow, insinuating her other-worldliness as a paragon of Confucian morality.