Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques |
Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques |
Vietnam has always had a number of silver smiths, although they generally made works for wealthy locals and for items for export to British India. This piece was made during the French colonial period of southeast Asia, which ran from the 1880s to the mid 1950s. This piece is marked “MY NGHE VM, HANOI, HTX.TINH HOA A.S.X., 0.900” and weighs just over two and a half ounces. What we now know as Vietnam was broken into two areas called Annan in the south and Tonkin in the north. The French made Hanoi the capital of Tonkin in 1902.
I date this piece to being from around 1910 to 1930 or so based on the fact that French Indo China (and later Vietnam) was involved in a series of civil wars, rebellions, invasions, communist states and the like from the 1930s to circa 1975. During this period I don’t expect that occupying Japanese and later the communists would have allowed a western export luxury good trade in Hanoi.
The quality of work shows great expertise in engraving and chasing on this piece that does not appear in later pieces from Vietnam, so I think it must be from the middle colonial period. This piece is a highly orientalized baroque style dolphin with a swinging silver basket above the dolphin’s mouth. The dolphin is held by the tail with the body to the side and the tea is poured from the tea pot with the tea passing through the strainer before the tea make it to the cup. Any tea debris is caught by the sieve. When you are done pouring the dolphin body is swung under the strainer, catching any spare drops before they can fall onto your fine linen tablecloth.
Detail Showing Location Soviet Mark Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer | at South Coast Antiques |
Detail Showing Marks on Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques |
The answer might lie with Soviet – Vietnamese relations since WWII. The USSR has been infiltrating China and Southeast Asia since the 1930s and after the Second World War, provided support for rebellious parties chafing under colonial administrations. When Vietnam was officially partitioned in the mid 1950s, the north became a communist state with Hanoi as its capital. I won’t go into the whole story of Soviet Cold War in Vietnam, but at least that amount of back ground is necessary to understand why there would be a later stamp from another country on a Vietnamese silver item.
Detail Showing Soviet Mark on Vietnamese Coin Silver Tea Strainer at South Coast Antiques |
Why did the Soviets have a vintage Vietnamese tea strainer in Moscow? Perhaps it was part payment for the material and weapons provided by the Soviets to North Vietnam for decades. It also might have been an item that would be been sold in elite party-only stores in Moscow.
So this is a lot of text for such a little piece of silver, but that is the charm of collecting. You learn a little geography, a little history, a little politics, and a little bit about the manufacturing process. This is why collecting is so contagious – there is something there for everybody.
Very, very interesting. I have a similar tea strainer of an Asian man about to bang a gong. It, too, is stamped with a Russian mark. (P, star w. sickle, and 916). Research says this type of stamp was used from 1958 forward.
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