ABOVE: an 11th century Vietnamese painting of a one-pillar pagoda, from the collection of Trinh Quang Vu.

Painters and historians at the Vietnam Industrial Art University have completed a restoration project including paintings from the 11th-century Ly Dynasty, Vietnamese websites reported yesterday. Truong Quoc Lap, Trinh Quang Vu, Pham Tam, and Nguyen Tuan collaborated to buff up 54 paintings from the collection of painter and art professor Trinh Quang Vu, a group of paintings spanning about 900 years and depicting a variety of subjects.

Interestingly, the majority of the paintings are by Chinese and European artists, mostly traders and clergymen. This in fact may account for the somewhat workaday subject matter—the foreigners were interested in depicting customs and events that the locals probably found too prosaic to record themselves. The paintings will go on display at Kinh Thien Temple on January 25.

LINK: VietnamNet Bridge > Restored art shows life in Hanoi 1000 years ago