[Vnbiz] Complete Reproduction of Nguyen Dynasty's Court Gowns and Imperial Sacrificial Tools

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear CACC,

FYI, below is anh Trinh Bach's presentation at the International Symposium
on Cultural Heritage Conservation in Hoi An, Spet. 14, 2003.

Have a great day!

Hoanh
____________


*REPRODUCTION OF VIETNAM NGUYEN DYNASTY'S COURT GOWNS AND IMPERIAL
SACRIFICIAL TOOLS*

(Presented at the International Symposium on Cultural Heritage Conservation
in Hoi An, September 14, 2003)

Poet Su Dong Bo of China's Song Dynasty (960-1279) once wrote, " ¡­ Nam Viet
(presently northern Vietnam) is a remote land. Should it not be for Marquis
Ma's conquest, the people of its nine districts still button their clothes
to the left today¡­"

Perhaps Mr. Su was mistaken, since it was Marquis Lo who conquered Nam Viet.
Nonetheless, this indicates that before the thousand-year-long Han Chinese
domination, the Vietnamese buttoned their dress to the left to differentiate
their customs to those of the Chinese. The concept of left-side buttoning
also shows that in the third century BC, the Vietnamese already used
buttons.

Centuries earlier, female figurines on dagger handles from the bronze-aged
Dong Son Period (circa 8th century BC) wore the same kind of skirt that
highborn Vietnamese women still used two thousand years later. Only that the
earlier had the narrow-sleeved dress of the tropical region, while the later
changed to the larger Chinese influenced sleeves. Afterwards, Princess My
Chau, daughter of King An Duong (257-207 BC) of the Thuc royal household,
wore a goose-down court gown as she and her father fled when their Co Loa
Citadel fell to the Nam Viet army in 207 BC.

Intricately carved gold leafed or jade belt or garment hooks have been
excavated from the warring States Period's tombs (137-125 BC) in north and
northern Central Vietnam. The bronze and jade collection found in the tomb
of Nam Viet's Emperor Trieu Ho (137-125 BC) in 1983 in Guang Dong, China
(which belonged to the Viet in Trieu Ho's time), is considered the best of
their kind in Chinese archaeology history.

In the same era, the country Van Lang (today's northern Vietnam, it was
changed to Au Lac by Thuc King, Phan, in 257 BC, then to Nam Viet by the
Trieu Da in 207 BC) of the Hung dynasty was very strong militarily. After
having pushed back many Thuc invasions, the eighteenth and last Hung King
became so arrogant, careless and, therefore, relaxed the defense. Finally
when the Thuc army attacked again, the king was too drunk to fight, and
subsequently lost his country. In such developed civilization, should
Vietnamese Hung royalties at the time of Emperor Trieu Ho and King An Duong
still be bare-chest and wearing loincloth at royal audiences, as some
historians have suggested?

Then should the gold thread applied onto court gowns of the Ly Dynasty
(1010-1225) be gold powder pasted or couched? Were the coalescent hues of
the Tran Dynasty's court gowns, which were ridiculed by the succeeding Le
dynasty's historians as vulgar, mixed in the same color pigments proportion
like in the Nguyen Dynasty's court gowns?  These details, even miniscule,
are serious queries in our project of reproducing court gowns of Vietnamese
dynasties.

All restoration and reproduction aspects must be well studied and
researched. No improvisation should be allowed. Historical, material,
quality, technical and artistic information must be strictly observed.

I decided to concentrate on the Nguyen Dynasty's court gowns after my
fortunate meeting in 1995 with the two nonagenarian Vu brothers in Ha Tay
Province, who offered their embroidery skills to the Imperial Nguyen Court
more than half a century earlier. Beside these very few last living
witnesses, at least there were still some original objects and photographs
of this dynasty's court gowns to be used as foundation for the project. The
Great South's Imperial Protocol and Regulation Encyclopedia (Kham Dinh Dai
Nam Hoi Dien Su Le) was also useful. Yet without practical experiences,
these books are difficult to understand.

The understanding of the Nguyen Dynasty's court gowns facilitates the study
of the court gowns of the preceding Le Dynasty and the short-lived Tay Son
Period. These three dynasties based their royal attires on the Chinese Ming
Dynasty's concepts. The only exception is in the water columns at the hem of
the Nguyen court gowns, which came from the court gowns of the Manchurian
Ching Dynasty in China.

Only the dresses used in court ceremonies, which people outside the royal
palace could not use, should be considered court gowns. Dresses worn by
royalties yet were made by the materials that could be bought and worn by
anybody should not belong to this category. In the Nguyen Dynasty
convention, only members of the imperial family can wear embroidered court
gowns. Court officials' gowns were made from a type of patterned silk damask
that was woven with a complex technique called Cai Hoa (fake embroidery).
Until now my project has been focusing only on embroidered court gowns.

Naturally, it is difficult to remake something that has been discontinued
for more than a half century. Even first grade craft men loss their skills
after not using them in such a long period of time. The old artists were
already in their late eighties therefore their hands and eyesight were
frail. The old-age element added more urgency to the task. Many renown
embroiders in the provinces of Hatay, Namdinh and Hanoi had been recruited
for the project by Vu Van Gioi, the old men's grandson and grandnephew. But
they all failed the old masters' expectations. After a few months, the old
artists decided to choose young descendants of professional families in the
village for their training. Already with good training, these youngsters'
fingers were not yet tainted by the market production's bad habit. Royal
embroidery must observe many regulations, and requires great cares and high
precision. Our weavers and fabric dyers also started young. Purposely, these
young pupils should already have acquired the necessary experiences,
patience and conscientiousness when they come of age. This also promises the
longevity of their crafts. Training the youths did help the old men to
recollect their skills considerably.

I paid these young trainees as professionals during their training years to
encourage their learning efforts. This was also because some parents claimed
that their children could make easier and quicker money in picture and
shaman embroideries.

Another difficulty we encountered in the project came from the fabric. The
production of court fabric had ceased long ago. The silk village Van Phuc in
Hadong Province used to provide fabric to the royal court, but in the
mid-nineteen-nineties the villagers did not remember much about these
textiles. Only the eighty-eight years old Mrs. Ty recalled helping her
husband and father-in-law weaving the royal longevity silk damask for the
fortieth birthday of Emperor Khai Dinh in 1924. And Mr. Le Van Bang, who
learned the art of weaving court damask and lampas in Hangzou, China,
decades ago.  Time had erased much of their professional memories. Some
villagers have heard of the names of some fabrics but never saw them, or the
other way around. Luckily, some Vietnamese museums, as well as overseas
descendants of Nguyen royalties, still kept a few old court gowns. Most of
them had been damaged, yet they could provide our project with precious
information. Beside informative details on forms, designs, materials and
colors, these gowns or remnants also helped revealing the fabrics' names.


I sent the same fabric samples to friends in the textile industry in
Washington D.C. and to elders in Van Phuc Village in Hatay Province, so both
could analyze their structures and weaving methods. Modern technology and
ancient professional eyes yielded similar results, which was forwarded to
weaving expert Trieu Van Mao of Van Phuc Village, so he could construct the
looms. Sometimes it took up to ten experimenting looms before an ancient
court fabric could be remade. Fabrics like Vietnamese silk gauze or ribbed
gauze (Sa or The Nam) can only be made by hand looms. And our loom, which
produces these fabrics in Van Phuc Village, is the only one of its kind in
the world currently. Other categories of court fabrics like silk damask,
lampas and satin are now made from semi-mechanical looms. It took the elders
in Van Phuc over two years to bring back the dragon medallion silk damask.
The eight precious delights patterned silk damask also took that much time
and efforts to reweave.

Deadlocks still remain, however. A Crepe-de-Chine-like silk fabric called
Nhieu Cat, which Vietnamese courtiers of various dynasties used for their
hair turbans, is one example. Although made of pure silk, this textile is
highly elastic and therefore prevents the turban from sliding. Until many
decades ago the Village Hong Do in Thanh Hoa Province and a few areas in
Binh Dinh Province still produced this fabric. But the weaving technique of
this fabric is virtually lost today.

The dyeing process of court fabric changed in the first half of the
twentieth century, when French technology was imported to Vietnam. Some easy
running natural colors like red and black could damage expensive dresses,
therefore they were replaced by colorfast chemical dyes. Dyeing procedures
and the methods of mixing colors remained unchanged.

Ancient Vietnamese preferred muted colors, therefore they used mostly mixed
hues.  Original colors were used mainly for outlining. After dyeing, the
fabric and thread colors, especially the red hues, were subdued by a
secondary dip in luber root (cu nau) or tea water. For that reason, old
Vietnamese court gowns and fabric paintings obtained that old appearance,
even though new.

Silk is thought by most people as being delicately soft. It may not be so.
While producing silk, the silk worm secretes a natural glue called sericin
over the filaments to protect them. This glue makes the silk stronger. At
least a portion of this glue was kept on ancient court fabrics to keep them
more durable and less wrinkled. Dyeing over sericin takes more time and
labor, and not every fabric dyer wants, or knows how to do it.

Authentic accessories are also used in our project. A Japanese collector
friend in Washington D C. has shown me some old embroidered dresses, which
she said were Chinese royal attires. On them were tiny glass beads that are
also found on Vietnamese court gowns. These beads, which are the smallest of
the Indian mangal beads, are of size 15 according to international standard.
Beads between sizes 8 and 11 are used in commercial products today. For
hundred of years the Chinese and Vietnamese royal courts had bought their
minuscule beads from a little village about 130 kilometers north of Bombay,
India. Currently there are only three families in the village still produce
mangal beads of this size. Finding needles small enough for these beads'
hole is equally difficult.

Because this project concentrates solely on embroidered royal gowns, the
defining of the gowns forms and designs becomes simpler. There are six major
categories of the Nguyen Dynasty's ceremonial court gowns. They are:

©¤  Long Con, the most solemn attire of emperors.  This gown is embroidered
with five-clawed dragons and cloud motifs on yellow fabric. Only emperors
and crown princes could use the five-clawed dragon, or Long, symbol. Nguyen
emperors wore this gown only once each year at the yearly heaven and earth
offering ceremonies.

©¤  Long Bao. Embroidered with five-clawed dragons and clouds motifs on
yellow fabric. Worn by emperors on grand court occasions. Crown princes also
used Long Bao, but the fabric of crown princes' Long Bao was in the
yellowish bronze color. When this gown is made for princes, it is called
Mang Bao, or princes' solemn gowns. This gown is decorated with four-clawed
dragons and clouds motifs on red fabric. Four-clawed dragons are called
Mang, or Naga.

©¤  Long Tran, or emperors' formal outdoors gown. This narrow-sleeved gown is
also embroidered with five-clawed dragons and clouds motifs on yellow
fabric. The emperors wore this gown at military reviews, or at spring
plowing ceremonies. When made for princes, this gown is called Mang Lan,
which has four-claws dragons on red fabric.

©¤  Phuong Bao, or empress-mothers and empresses' solemn gown. This gown has
phoenixes and clouds motifs embroidered on yellow or tangerine fabric. This
gown is called the Nhat Binh if it is made for the princess rank. A Nhat
Binh is embroidered with phoenix medallions, flowers and eight precious
symbols on red fabric.

©¤  Menh Phu or Nhat Binh, a front-opening gown worn by female royalties on
all ceremonial occasions. The colors of the gowns' fabric differ according
to ranks.

   - Bi bao, or Ao Dai Kep. This formal tunic is worn by both genders in
   festive occasions, or under the solemn gowns.



Vietnamese court gowns are cut very large. The distance between the two
sleeve ends of a male gown should measure approximately 2,5 meters. It is
made for the 1,80 height. Female gowns are smaller to fit the 1,65 meter
height. If the wearer is short, the hem should be folded up inward, never
cut, and sewn to fit.

There are only a few extant Nguyen dynasty court gowns in Vietnam and abroad
for our sampling. Without original sample the gown will be made from
documentary information, pictures and living witnesses' accounts. Empress
Nam Phuong's autumn-winter solemn gown is an example. The gown's shape is
taken after Grand Princess My Luong's solemn gown, which is kept by her
descendants in the United States. A royal decree issued by Emperor Bao Dai
in 1932 granted the empress the right to wear solemn gowns in tangerine
color. According to the Nguyen Dynasty's Imperial Protocol and Regulation
Encyclopedia, the outer layer fabric of the gown should be Doan Bat Ti, or
royal silk satin. The embroidery threads' colors are also indicated in the
encyclopedia. Based on many black and white photographs of the empress
wearing this gown, each water column at the gown's hem is embroidered in
solid color, instead of the multi-shaded columns normally seen on other
gowns. We also gathered information, like on the lining fabric's material
and color, from the old Madame Dinh, a former wardrobe chamberlain of the
Empress-Mothers Thanh Cung and Tu Cung.

There are also dresses made by lay people who obtained the embroidered royal
fabrics after the Nguyen Dynasty had ended. I have seen a yellow dress made
from Sa Nam fabric in Switzerland. The embroidered phoenix medallions are
reserved for women, yet this dress has been cut in the men's Long Tran
style. In any case, dresses like this one offer us more embroidery samples,
as well as proofs of materials and colors.

As most of the required fabrics had been reproduced, and after a half decade
of hard training of the young embroiders, the first court gown of the Nguyen
Dynasty was completed at the beginning of the year 2000.

So far we have been able to produce 14 Nguyen dynasty court gowns. It is
fortunate that most of the challenges have been passed, and all members of
the team have become masters of their crafts. Because my personal financial
savings have been completely drained, experiments and trials like in earlier
days are no longer affordable. The New York based Albert Kunstadter Family
Foundation has been giving this project its periodic financial supports, yet
the needs for this large-scale endeavor exceed our ability. Not many people
understand how difficult and costly it is to make an exact reproduction of
an ancient treasure.

It is so sad that by 1999 all old court embroiders of Thuong Tin had passed
away. But they had enough time to leave us a priceless cultural art for
posterity. And they have given their country a small group of young court
embroidery artists that the world should admire.

*ADDENDUM *

(December 2003)

Then in April, 2003, the Hue Center for Monuments Conservation Center
proposed to me another project: the restoration of the interior decoration
of Emperor Gia Long's shrine in the Royal Ancestral Temple, or The Mieu, in
the Forbidden City. This should serve as a pilot phase in the restoration of
the entire temple, which contains ten such shrines. This should be a good
opportunity for Vietnamese craft-masters of various trades to exhibit their
well-kept skills. A contract was conceived and signed a month later.

Twenty-five categories, with sixty-two objects, were chosen for the project.
Among them were fourteen-feet-long embroidered silk banners, fourteen feet
wide and high dragon bamboo screens, large size royal porcelain fish bowls
and planters, lacquered and gold leafed sacrificial tools, carved silver
refreshment sets, intricate mother-of¨Cpearl inlaid wooden trays.

I found remnants of the eight-precious-emblem patterned silk damask and
longevity and dragon silk gauze from the Grand-Prince Kien Thai's manor,
which had been used as sacrificial-tray cover and altars' curtain
respectively. Together with master weaver Trieu Van Mao of the silk village
Van Phuc in Ha Tay Province, we have reproduced these fabrics for the
project.

We strictly follow the principles of authenticity and tradition of quality,
material, technique, documentary verification and artistic style in our
replication task. When original models or photographs are unavailable, we
resort to documented records and interviews of witnesses. Or we can also
take comparative methods, like in the case of the small sacrificial
porcelain lidded cups. All of these dragon and turtle-shell patterned cups
from the Thieu Tri Period (1841-1847) still remain today are in large size.
We must copy them in exact resemble, but of reduced size to befit the
original box cases in the shrine.

By good fortune I met Mrs. Nguyen Thi Sum, daughter of a ninth rank mandarin
in the late Nguyen Period, whose family had been providing bamboo screens to
the imperial palace for generations. And Mrs. Sum continues her family
trade. Each side of the screen measures thirteen feet, which makes the
finding of the sufficiently large bamboo difficult. Especially since we need
a very large amount of this material, as each of the ten shrines requires
three of such screen. Bamboo must be harvest before it produces shoots,
because the tree is more susceptible to timber pests after reproduction.

Black and white photographs taken between 1924 and 1933 helped me to
redesign the screens. Remnants of the late Nguyen dynasty screens in the
storage facility of the royal tombs and traditional paintings determined the
colors. In old days bamboo screens were painted with colored limestone
powder. But traces of clear varnish were found on the late Nguyen period
screens, and that was confirmed by Mrs. Sum. Without the varnish, the color
powder would fade away after a few reeling. Beside, the high humidity in Hue
hastens the mildew's growth, therefore varnish was used in the later Nguyen
Period to protect the royal bamboo screens. My two screens that are not on
display and still rolled up in the temple's backroom have been badly
mildewed. But the varnish protects the color safely as the fungi are wiped
off.

Lacquered and gold leafed sacrificial tools, such as lamp and basin stands,
fruit and food trays, dusters, etc., are made of jack fruits' wood. We were
lucky to find black and white horsehair that exceeds twenty-four feet in
length for these dusters.

For the proper red shade of the lacquer I consulted Mr. Phan The Hue, who
had fourteen years of experience as a wood carver and lacquer artist in the
imperial palace during the Bao Dai Period (1925-1945). Mr. Hue showed me the
two original metal-wood pillars in the Throne Hall. There are three coats of
red lacquer on each pillar, and the darker inner- most coat should be of the
most correct hue, according to the old master.

Cinnabar hued lacquer is not popular in Vietnam. Traditional Vietnamese red
lacquer bears a brownish shade, which is called Ba Trau, or betel spit.
Ancient North Vietnamese also used lacquer of dark pink color.
Conventionally, there should be many layers of gauze and black foundation
resin underneath the red lacquer coats on large objects like house pillars
or divans. On these smaller items, however, we could only put on three coats
of plain black resin before the Ba Trau lacquer.

Before the arrival of synthetic lacquer and gold paint, which is rampant in
restoration endeavors today, gold leaf of 18 and 14 karat had been used.
Only in most serious cases that pure gold leaf was applied. Since the Royal
Ancestral Temple is the most sacred place in the imperial palace, and in the
country, I decided to use 24 Karat gold leaf on all of its lacquered wooden
sacrificial tools. Chemical adhesive should not be employed in gold leafing,
since it would diminish the gold's luster. Well-processed natural clear
shellac is better for this purpose. Cares should be given, however, since
not properly dried shellac also alters the gold's color.

We use the highest quality imported glaze, blue cobalt enamel, and the white
kaolin called Petuntse in the reproduction of royal porcelains. The firing
temperature is set at 1,350 Celsius degree, as ancient royal kilns did. At
this high heat, petuntse has a highest melting rate among all types of
kaolin. Above the temperature 1300 degree, it must take 4 hours to raise
each10 degrees. Without this precaution, the baked objects can easily
collapse.  As the result, to avoid suffering too many deformed wares, old
day's royal kilns, as well as modern ceramic factories, rarely used petuntse
to make large objects like fish bowls and large vases. Instead, these items
are made from various kinds of stronger silica-rich clay. The baking
temperature is also set safely at no higher than 1,200 degree, and the
baking time is only about 10 hours in total to save energy. With this
material, low temperature, and short firing time, the ware can not reach a
desired degree of clarity and whiteness. This is very much evident in the
market quality Chinese ceramics today. Even large antique fishbowls and
vases in many museums can not avoid this circumstance. The two large
fishbowls displayed in the Throne Hall in Hue can serve as examples.

After firing in high temperature, the cobalt enamel turns dark blue. But
however dark it is, the blue color must still be deep and clear. The higher
firing temperature makes the blue enamel more vibrant. The grayish hues of
the blue enamel are adjusted by altering the amount of ferro-peroxide mixed
into the cobalt. Chinese royal ceramics made in the period between late
Kangsi and late Chienlung (1700-1790) were famous for their deep blue
enamel. The pure white glaze from the Yongcheng Period (1723-1735) added
more elegance to seventeenth century Chinese porcelains. Some of the late
eighteenth-century Vietnamese royal ceramics of the Le-Trinh Dynasty are
also re-known for these characteristics. Toward the end of the Nguyen
Dynasty in the beginning of the twentieth century, the quality of Vietnamese
royal porcelains declined. It was difficult to find pure cobalt enamel in
the Khai Dinh Period's (1916-1924) ceramics.
Modern ceramic factories often use unmixed blue chemical enamel. Further
more, to avoid flawed products, the firing temperature time is normally set
quite low and short. Therefore commercial ceramics today look lifeless, as
if the blue enamel had been printed onto the clay.

Abiding with the new Vietnamese Cultural Heritage laws, we have inscribed
under glazed our own emblems onto the kaolin of our duplicated royal
ceramics before firing. We also strictly avoid performing any fake antique
gimmick on the products.

These are only brief examples of what we must go through in the restoration
of the Royal Ancestral Temple's interior decoration. Countless of other
large and small tasks also involved. Everything must be accomplished by
August 23, 2003, the tenth anniversary of Hue being recognized by UNESCO as
a world cultural heritage. From that day, all of those reproduced objects
were put on display in the Throne Hall's left wing for the public's viewing.


Finally, an evaluation committee was formed by the Thua Thien-Hue Province
and the Hue Center for Monuments Conservation. And it was convened in early
November of the same year to judge the result of the Royal Ancestral Temple
project. The committee members smothered me with criticisms, which I think
necessary.  For museums and historic sites' restorations, even tiniest
details deserve great attentions. Especially when the Royal Ancestral Temple
has been considered the country's most sacred place of for more than a
century, and it is very important to Vietnam's much needed tourist business.
I hope, though, that the evaluation of other historical sites' restoration
projects in the country from here on should be likely critical.


                                                Bach Trinh

                                                  December 2003

--
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC
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