Located on the To Lich river bank in Thanh Tri district of Hanoi city (approximately 7km from Hoan Kiem Lake), Dinh Cong jewelry craft village is famous for its long-term history of jewelry handcraft sculpturing, and often be called as Jewelry Handicraft Village other than its real name of Dinh Cong.
According to the legend, in King Ly Nam De’s reign, three brothers of the Tran family: Tran Dien, Tran Hoa and Tran Dien lived in this village. Three brothers learned the career of making silver and gold jewelries by chance. Since then, they passed this career to local people of the village and created the reputation of Dinh Cong’s silver and gold products.
Dinh Cong’s products are definitely hand-made with high skills of silversmiths. The artisans must understand four basic techniques, including smoothing, combining, sculpturing and pulling. Smoothing is to polish products and create standard shapes. Combining is to join details of products harmoniously and ensure they are well-proportioned. Sculpturing is to draw and carve fine patterns for the silver or gold products. Pulling is to drag hot melted silver as threads, which are as small as strands of hair to make patterns or shapes of animals or flowers for sticking on the products.
The pulling technique requires careful and skillful hands to create smooth and beautiful products with harmonious details. Each product is a refined artistic work in terms of techniques and quintessence in terms of aesthetic and usage values. Only silver 999 can be pulled into threads with different sizes. In the past, silver products were often small ones such as flowers, butterflies, bracelets, necklaces and rings.
Firstly, the artisan must heat silver, mould it into bars and pull into small threads. Then, combine two or three silver threads, laminate them and make small patterns of flowers, butterflies or small, wild flowers. This technique also allows the silversmith to create very small silver balls and combine them as products. To make a good product, the silversmith may take at least two years to be skilled.
Today, when coming to Dinh Cong Jewelry village, you may interest in visiting the workshop of famous craftsman Quach Van Hieu. His youngest son Quach Phan Tuan Anh is also a very skillful artisan like his father.
Only after visiting booths showcase the complicated techniques of making silver products, looking at young silversmith passionately learning the traditional career with beads of perspiration on their foreheads, holding and enjoying silver products of Dinh Cong village, you will understand more about the creation and perfection in the silversmith’s hands. We can understand the patience, intelligence and creation of silversmiths in Dinh Cong and Vietnam through beautiful patterns decorated on the products. Ask us to customize your Hanoi tour with a visit to Dinh Cong jewelry craft village.
