Dao Van Can Memorial House

Dao Van Can Memorial House is located in his native Trieu Dong, now in Thuong Phuc Commune, Hanoi City, and is a place to commemorate and preserve images, documents, and artifacts associated with the life and career of artisan and sculptor Dao Van Can. The site has been recognized as a historical-cultural relic in 2004, becoming a meaningful address for preserving and introducing the artistic values of the homeland.

Artisan Dao Van Can was born in 1894 in Trieu Dong village. From a young age, he followed his parents to Bat Trang to work as a hired laborer and soon became attached to the pottery craft. Thanks to his talent, diligence, and creativity, he gradually became a famous artisan in the fields of pottery and sculpture. In 1925, during a royal tour of Tonkin, King Bao Dai visited a pottery facility where he worked and bestowed the Kim Khanh and conferred on Dao Van Can the title of Ninth-rank Ba Ho.

In his creative career, Dao Van Can left many valuable works such as the statue “Kim Dong”, “When Eating Fruit, Remember the One Who Planted the Tree”, “Nguyen Hue’s Great Defeat of the Qing Army” and many other works. He also participated in designing and creating many items at Hung Ky Pagoda and Trieu Dong Pagoda, bringing pottery, relief, and sculpture techniques into religious architectural works.

Today, the memorial house still preserves images, documents, artifacts, and some versions of the artisan’s works. It is a place that helps today’s generations learn about a son of the homeland who devoted his entire life to labor and artistic creation and left respectable marks on Vietnamese fine arts in the twentieth century. In 2004, Dao Van Can Memorial House was recognized as a city-level historical and architectural-art relic.