French President François Hollande was gifted a folding screen from Vietnamese PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc during the two’s meeting in Hanoi on Tuesday as part of the former’s first trip to the Southeast Asian country.

Hollande touched down in Hanoi on Tuesday morning to commence a two-day official visit to Vietnam, making him the first French head of state to visit the country in 12 years.

During a meeting with Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Xuan Phuc later the same day, the French president was gifted a one-of-its-kind lacquered folding screen handcrafted by native artisans using a special style of Vietnamese lacquering, unique to the country and distinctly different from Chinese and Japanese lacquering techniques.

The masterpiece’s design was counseled by Vietnamese historian and legislator Duong Trung Quoc and sketched by French artist Elizabeth de Roquefeuil, director of art at Hanoia, a Hanoi-based lacquer workshop.

According to Hanoia, the single-copy gift was handcrafted in 25 delicate phases by selected Vietnamese artisans over three months and coated with 17 layers of lacquer.

The folding screen is also lined with Moon Gold, a high-quality producer of gold leaves used by luxury fashion brands.

The lacquered folding screen presented to French President François Hollande by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the occasion of the former’s visit to Vietnam from September 6 to 7, 2016. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The 80-by-38 centimeter folding screen, named ‘Dau An Thoi Gian’ (The Imprint of Time), is comprised of four lacquered screens, each featuring a different French figure who held a major influence on Vietnam’s course of history, against the backdrop of historical monuments built by the French in Vietnam that have become valued heritage to the country.

The first portrait features Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), a Swiss-French physician and bacteriologist who served as the first headmaster of Vietnam’s first medical university, Indochina Medical College (now Hanoi Medical University), and a founder of the Central Highlands city of Da Lat.

On the background of Yersin’s portrait is a sketch of Hanoi Medical University.

Madeleine Colani (1866-1943), a female French archaeologist who dedicated a major part of her life to studying Vietnam’s prehistory, is represented on the second panel of the folding screen. She is known for discovering the ‘Hoabinhian culture’, a critical period in the progress of human history.

Colani’s portrait is set against the Louis Finot Museum (now the Vietnam National Museum of History in Hanoi), built in 1926 by French colonists.

Featured on the third panel is Victor Tardieu (1870-1937), a French painter who founded the Indochina College of Fine Arts (now the Vietnam University of Fine Arts) in Hanoi in 1927, which trained the first generation of Vietnam’s visual artists and laid essential groundwork for the development of Vietnamese modern art.

Beside Tardieu’s portrait is the Hanoi Opera House, a work of French architecture with rich historical, cultural, and artistic values.

The final portrait is of Raymond Aubrac (1914-2012), a leader of the French Resistance against Nazi Germans in the Second World War and a close friend to President Ho Chi Minh during peace negotiations throughout Vietnam’s modern history.

Next to Aubrac’s portrait is the Long Bien Bridge, originally known as the Paul Doumer Bridge, a 114-year-old historic cantilever bridge that connects the two districts of Long Bien and Hoan Kiem in Hanoi.

The lacquered folding screen presented to French President François Hollande by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on the occasion of the former’s visit to Vietnam from September 6 to 7, 2016. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The delicate Vietnamese craftsmanship showcased by the screen was also illustrated in an equally stunning double-sided cover sheet, with one side made of the ancient brocade developed by the Thai-Vietnamese people in central Vietnam and the other of ‘lanh My A’, a unique type of Vietnamese silk woven using ancient techniques.

The silk is dyed hundreds of times in the resin from the berries of ‘mac nua’ trees, scientifically known as Diospyros mollis, for half a year until a smooth and shiny shade of black is achieved.

François Hollande left Hanoi on Tuesday evening for Ho Chi Minh City, where the French president met with the city’s senior officials and representatives from French businesses before paying a visit to the Ho Chi Minh City Heart Institute and various software companies throughout the city.

French President François Hollande (L) and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc shake hands during a meeting in Hanoi on September 6, 2016. Photo: Reuters

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