Đông Hồ Prints: 500 Years of Vietnamese Folk Art from the Heart of a Village

About 35 kilometers northeast of Hanoi, on the southern bank of the Đuống River, lies a village that has forever marked the history of Vietnamese art. Đông Hồ — or "East Moon Village" — lent its name to Vietnam's most famous tradition of folk prints. For centuries, every family in the village lived by the rhythm of the seasons and the production of these colorful images that adorned homes across the country for the Lunar New Year.

Today, only a few families continue this tradition using the original materials and techniques. On December 9, 2025, UNESCO officially inscribed this art on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding — both a warning signal and global recognition.

History: From the 15th Century to the Present Day

The first Đông Hồ prints appeared under the Southern Lê Dynasty in the 15th century — a period of great cultural renewal in Vietnam. The woodblock printing technique already existed, primarily used for printing Buddhist texts. Đông Hồ artisans adapted it to create popular images for the general public: accessible in price, understandable in their themes, and beautiful in their colors.

The village's golden age was between the late 19th century and 1944: the seventeen clans of the village then produced thousands of prints sold at seasonal markets that attracted buyers from all over the country. Boats laden with local specialties traveled up the Đuống River to exchange them for prints, which were then distributed to the most remote villages.

The Indochina War broke this dynamic. The French burned the village, the wooden blocks were destroyed, and the artisans fled. After 1954, a laborious reconstruction began. In 1967, an artisan named Nguyễn Hữu Sam gathered fifty artisans to form a cooperative — and Đông Hồ prints experienced a new lease of life, exported even to countries in the European socialist bloc. But the fall of the Berlin Wall and Vietnam's economic opening in the 1990s led to a collapse in demand. More than 90% of families abandoned the production of tranh to switch to making votive paper (hàng mã).

Today, a tiny number of artisans — including the families Nguyễn Hữu Quả and Nguyễn Đăng Chế — keep the tradition alive. Their work is literally precious.

The Technique: Uncompromising Craftsmanship

Making an authentic Đông Hồ print takes time, patience, and technical mastery acquired over years of apprenticeship.

Step 1 — Model Design. A scholar-artisan draws the motif in Indian ink on thick paper. The drawing is refined to perfection, then flipped to be transferred onto the woodblock — ensuring the image is in the correct orientation when printed.

Step 2 — Carving the Blocks. The artisan carves the wood with a set of steel chisels (bộ ve) of different sizes — 30 to 40 tools per set. Each block corresponds to one color. A four-color print therefore requires four carved blocks, plus a block for black outlines. This step can take several days for a complex composition.

Step 3 — Paper Preparation. Raw dó paper is brushed with a paste made of seashell powder (bột điệp) and sticky rice glue. This operation is repeated two to three times (kép hai, kép ba), with each layer dried before the next application. The result is a slightly stiff paper with a pearlescent and iridescent surface that absorbs pigments without smudging.

Step 4 — Printing. This is where Đông Hồ's unique technique comes in: xấp ván (face-down printing). The artisan spreads the pigment on a flat surface with a pine leaf pad (thét), then presses the carved block face-down onto the paper (and not the other way around, as in most printing traditions worldwide). They then rub the back of the paper with a loofah sponge to ensure the ink penetrates evenly. The print is then peeled off and left to dry. This operation is repeated for each color, from lightest to darkest, with black outlines added last.

Step 5 — Final Retouching. A few details are adjusted with a brush (đồ tranh) to perfect the work. The quality of a print is judged by the precision of the color registration: the less misalignment between the different printing blocks, the more skilled the artisan.

Key Themes: What Each Image Tells

The Đông Hồ repertoire includes over 180 recorded motifs. Here are the most iconic:

The Horse of Success (Mã Đáo Thành Công): a harnessed horse galloping, promising immediate success. An ideal gift for a new business or ambitious project.

The Pig Family (Đàn Lợn Âm Dương): a sow surrounded by five piglets with yin-yang motifs. A symbol of fertility and family abundance.

The Wedding of the Rats (Đám Cưới Chuột): social satire disguised as a festive scene — rats bring gifts to the cat to earn the right to celebrate their wedding.

Child with Rooster (Vinh Hoa) and Child with Duck (Phú Quý): the most popular diptych in the repertoire, wishing glory and wealth.

The Two Trưng Sisters (Hai Bà Trưng): the Vietnamese national heroines, mounted on war elephants — a symbol of resistance and national pride.

How to Recognize an Authentic Print?

Given the proliferation of industrial reproductions, it's important to know how to distinguish an authentic Đông Hồ print from a cheap offset copy.

An authentic print has a slight tactile relief due to the pressure of the carved block on the paper. The surface of điệp paper has a pearlescent sheen visible in raking light. The colors show slight variations in intensity in solid areas, a sign of manual application. And the color registration, however precise, always shows a minute misalignment that betrays the human hand — whereas industrial printing is perfectly regular.

At Viet Art, all our prints are sourced directly from artisans and come with a certificate of authenticity describing the artwork, its origin, and its manufacturing technique.

Integrating Đông Hồ Prints into Your Home Decor

The beauty of Đông Hồ prints lies in their ability to adapt to all interior styles. In a Parisian apartment with white walls, a framed print adds a touch of refined exoticism without falling into kitsch. In an industrial loft, its warm colors create an organic counterpoint to raw materials. In a country house, it naturally fits into an aesthetic of craftsmanship and handmade goods.

We recommend simple frames, preferably in natural wood or black lacquer, which highlight the pearlescent background of the điệp paper without competing with it. Indirect lighting or a directed spot can reveal the characteristic iridescence of the surface.

Discover our complete collection on vietart.eu — and if you're looking for a truly original gift idea, also check out our cards printed on authentic dó paper.