Pair of Vietnamese Bronze Bust Sculptures Nguyen Thanh Le Attribution Luxury Asian Art | Mid-Century Patinated Bronze Circa 1950’s

Details

Description

Pair of patinated bronze bust sculptures depicting young Vietnamese women, each mounted on a black-painted wooden plinth with brass securing … Read more Pair of patinated bronze bust sculptures depicting young Vietnamese women, each mounted on a black-painted wooden plinth with brass securing nut. Each bust features finely modeled hair, delicate facial detailing, and small earrings. Impressed mark on lower neck of both pieces, consistent with Vietnamese workshop/foundry marking conventions. Hand-engraved numbers also visible inside the hollow base of each bust — a detail rarely documented in comparable listings.

Attributed to Nguyen Thanh Le (Vietnamese, 1919–2006), a sculptor who worked from a small shop in Saigon selling primarily to military personnel during the mid-20th century. Because this was small workshop production with no surviving catalogue or formal foundry archive, period pieces are consistently described as "attributed to" by major auction houses handling comparable works — this is standard and accepted practice for this maker, not a gap in this piece's documentation.

• Height: 10.5" for the tallest; and 10” for the shorter; approximately 5.5” length for taller and 4.5” length for short (measured from nose to end of hair)
• Base: 3.25" square
• Weight: approximately 5 lbs each
• Material: Hollow-cast bronze, black painted wood plinth
• Mark: Impressed neck mark on both pieces, hand-engraved numbers inside hollow base (one reads approximately "735")
• Condition: Good — minor surface wear and rubbing to patina and plinths consistent with age. One bust is missing its original hair pin (photo included showing the mounting point in the bun where the pin would have been set). The securing bolt on the shorter bust has loosened and spins freely but the bust remains stable and upright.

Why We Love It: Matched pairs from this maker are considerably harder to find than singles, and the survival of both original wood plinths together is uncommon. The interior hand-engraving on each piece is a workshop detail rarely shown in comparable listings, offering a closer look at how these were marked and tracked at the time of production. A quietly striking pair with real mid-century Saigon history behind it.

Vintagely Impress…Curated for the Collector in You

Please note price is for the pair as listed. Other items shown are for reference and staging only. See less