Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia

Bronze statue with a human body and elephant head.
  • Dates

    May 15, 2010–January 23, 2011

  • Location

    Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

  • Collection Area

    Southeast Asian Art

The fascinating story of bronze sculpture and casting in Cambodia is revealed through thirty-six exceptional works. Magnificent examples dating from the prehistoric period to the post-Angkorian period (third century BCE to sixteenth century CE) present the origins, uses, and techniques of bronze casting and the development of a distinctly Cambodian style.

This exhibition is the result of an ongoing partnership between the Freer and Sackler Galleries and the National Museum of Cambodia. The museums have worked together to establish a metals conservation laboratory in Cambodia, the first in that nation. Seven of the works on view, discovered in 2006, are among the first bronzes conserved in the lab by the staff of the National Museum. Gods of Angkor travels to the Getty Center of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in early 2011.

Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia is organized by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Museum of Cambodia. Major funding is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation and Leon Levy Foundation.


Related Publication

Gods of Angkor: Bronzes from the National Museum of Cambodia

Author List: Louise Allison Cort and Paul Jett (eds.)
Publisher: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; distributed by University of Washington Press and Silkworm Books
Publication Date: May 12, 2010

This book celebrates not only the collaborative efforts of the Cambodian and US museums to restore and interpret a remarkable group of sixth- and seventh-century Buddhist sculptures, but also the accomplishments of Khmer bronze casters from the third century BCE to the fourteenth century CE. The authors decipher the makeup and meaning of bronze or figural images, ritual vessels, and other objects, placing them in the context of Southeast Asian life and worship from prehistoric times through the pre-Angkorian and Angkorian eras.

Gods of Angkor book cover, featuring a figure of an elephant-faced god
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