Themed “Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century”, the international exhibition will be the first featuring the region’s religious art at the museum.
Curator of the museum’s South and Southeast Asian art John Guy said most of the 160 sculptures to be displayed are made of stone, terracotta and bronze.
A majority of the works have been lent by the governments of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Myanmar as well as the UK and France. The rest belongs to US museums.
Many of the Vietnamese exhibits are valued as masterpieces, including a late seventh-century Avalokitesivara discovered in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam in the 1920s.
Other highlights from the country are a Vishnu and a Ganesha from the 7th -8th Century, a Yakasha from the early 6th Century, a Buddha in Meditation sculpture from the 8th Century, and a Shiva Linga from the 5th -6th Century.
Museum Director Thomas P.Campell described an exhibition with such an abundance of Southeast Asian antiquities as a rare event, and thanked the regional governments for lending the artefacts for display
