Themed “Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century”, the exhibition will showcase nearly 160 rare antique statues, mainly large-scale, intricate stone sculptures, terracottas, and bronzes.
Most of the objects are designated national treasures lent by the governments of Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar, as well as stellar loans from France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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Vietnam will bring to the exhibition a series of masterpieces including a late 7th-century Avalokiteshvara statue discovered in the Mekong delta in the 1920s, Devi, Shiva’s Consort Uma of startling naturalism that possibly embodies a portrait of a deceased Khmer queen of the first half of the 7th century, and an ascetic Ganesha from the 8th-century religious sanctuary of My Son in central Vietnam.
“The majority of the antique works at Lost Kingdoms have never traveled outside their source countries before. We are indebted to the generosity of the Southeast Asian countries including the Vietnamese government when lending their national treasures to the exhibition,” said Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum.
