Royal Bronzes of Angkor, an Art of the Divine

Pierre Baptiste, David Bourgarit, Brice Vincent, Thierry Zéphir

Angkor, the capital of the Khmer kingdom for more than six centuries (9th–15th century), has preserved from its past glory monumental remains of incomparable magnitude and beauty. The architecture of the temples and the stone statues installed inside have been celebrated many times and are part of the heritage of humankind. But did you know that these grandiose Hindu and Buddhist sanctuaries, now empty, once housed a considerable number of deities, especially the main cult images, made of precious metal (gold, silver, and bronze, the latter often gilded) and had numerous accessories of daily rituals and other decorations, also made of metal? All these elements appear furtively on certain bas-reliefs, but their existence is mainly revealed in the Sanskrit and Khmer inscriptions written on the walls and steles of the temples.

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Bust of reclining Vishnu
Cambodia, Siem Reap province, Angkor, West Mebon; Angkor period, 2nd half of 11th century
Gilded and inlaid bronze; height 122 cm
National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh (Ga. 5387)
Photo by Thierry Ollivier © Musée Guimet

An exhibition at the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques–Guimet in Paris (Musée Guimet), ‘Royal Bronzes of Angkor, an Art of the Divine’, is devoted to one of these specific materials—bronze, or samrit in Old Khmer—of which too few examples have survived. This metal is the result of the fusion in a crucible of copper mixed with tin and possibly lead. This noble alloy gave birth to masterpieces that testify to the Khmer sovereigns’ attachment to both Hinduism and Buddhism. Metalworking is the prerogative of the gods, but also of kings, who are their earthly counterparts, and the know-how it requires was developed in workshops established in the capital near the royal palace, whether in Angkor or later in Longvek and Oudong (16th–19th century), then in Phnom Penh (19th–20th century).

Since the end of the 1980s, the Musée Guimet has developed a close and ongoing relationship with the Cambodian Ministry of Culture. The collaboration between the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and the Musée Guimet came to fruition in 1997 with the organization of the exhibition ‘Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millennium of Glory’ at the National Gallery of the Grand Palais in Paris and then in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It is in this same spirit that the present exhibition is realized, largely motivated and made possible by the recent archaeological work conducted by the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO) and the technological studies carried out in parallel at the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France (C2RMF). Led by the Musée Guimet, this exhibition aims to trace the long history of the art of bronze in Cambodia, from its distant origins and first statuary testimonies to the most contemporary achievements, through a journey that will take visitors to the major sites of Khmer heritage. The peak period of Angkor (11th–13th century) that saw the kingdom gradually extend its influence to most of mainland Southeast Asia, during which time its temples and palaces acquired a large number of bronze works, occupies the heart of this chronological journey. The main thread is that of the relationship maintained between the Khmer sovereigns who commissioned the large bronze castings and the specialized craftsmen who worked in their service symbolize the close link between art and power.

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Modelization of the Mebon Vishnu and his fragments on the remains of its pedestal found in situ in the temple
(After Olivier Cunin, 2004)

This exhibition brings together exceptional loans from the National Museum of Cambodia—126 works in addition to the colossal bronze statue of the reclining Vishnu unearthed in the West Mebon temple at Angkor—granted by the Royal Government of Cambodia in the specific framework of a collaboration established between the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, the C2RMF, the EFEO and the Musée Guimet (figs 1 to 4). Around a hundred works from the Musée Guimet and other French collections complete the selection. In an unprecedented manner, a unique set of Khmer bronzes—including Hindu and Buddhist devotional images, ritual paraphernalia and prestige artefacts, and elements of architectural decoration—is presented in dialogue with stone sculptures, archaeological objects, casts, written and graphic records, and photographs, with the aim of deepening the understanding of the political, cultural, and technical context in which they came to life (figs 5 and 6).

These bronze works, nearly all of which are religious in nature, serve not only as supports for beliefs and as ritual tools, but also as accomplished expressions of the aesthetics of Khmer art and as sophisticated technical achievements. The ‘art of bronze’ is considered here in all its aspects.

The exhibition draws on the history of religion and art as well as on the history of techniques. It is based, first of all, on a series of works which, for almost a century, have contributed and continue to contribute to the understanding of the bronzes of ancient Cambodia in terms of their function—mostly ritual—their iconography—Hindu or Buddhist—and their style. Research has continued to describe the attributes, forms, and decorations specific to bronze statues and objects, the knowledge of which has been enriched by discoveries made in the ancient Khmer territory, whether in Cambodia, particularly in the Angkor region, or in neighbouring countries (Laos, Thailand, Vietnam). However, only a tiny part of the ancient production has been preserved. The Khmer appear to have consistently practised recycling through recasting, throwing old sacred images into the crucible to produce new ones. Furthermore, the vicissitudes of history, especially since the end of the Angkorian period, have resulted in the systematic pillaging and recovery of all metals deemed more or less precious, including gold, silver, bronze, copper, and iron.

Meanwhile, these same bronze works, especially statuary, have been integrated into the stylistic study of Khmer art, without always perfectly conforming to the criteria maintained for their stone counterparts. The metal images are in fact the result of modelling work before being cast in the lost-wax process. The materials and techniques used, with their greater possibilities, explain, at least in part, the variations observed.

The exhibition also reflects the methodological renewal that the study of Khmer bronzes has undergone since the 1990s, when the first research into their production techniques was initiated in order to uncover the secrets of Khmer samrit and, more broadly, to rediscover the knowledge and know-how of the founders of ancient Cambodia. These pioneering studies, which relied on the methods and techniques of archaeometry, were initially developed in the United States and France within the context of museums and laboratories. It was only after the 2012 discovery of a royal foundry at Angkor (fig. 7)—the first of its kind to be identified in Cambodia and Southeast Asia—that fieldwork began to supplement the earlier focus on the examination and analysis of finished products only, leading to strictly archaeometallurgical investigations on Cambodian soil based on what can be called a technological approach (fig. 8).

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Location of the royal foundry site in Angkor Thom, Siem Reap province, Cambodia (red: royal palace; yellow: studied area); detail of the archaeological operations since 2012
Source: LANGAU research programme

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Royal foundry, 2017 excavation campaign: concentration of foundry furnaces and forges under study
Photo: LANGAU research programme

Since 2016, under the direction of the EFEO and in partnership with the Cambodian authorities (Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, APSARA National Authority), the LANGAU research programme has been studying the metallurgy of copper and its alloys—including bronze—at the time of Angkor. Through a multidisciplinary approach, it aims to provide a historical and technological reconstruction of this largely unknown part of Angkorian craftsmanship. The work with copper and its alloys will not only be recontextualized within a centralized state system and economy, but will also be studied in as many stages of production as possible, from the mines to the foundries to the places of consumption. In the field, this programme first resumed the study of the site of the royal foundry at Angkor from the specific angle of the archaeology of techniques, before initiating new research into the sources of supply and the networks for the circulation of copper, both within the ancient Khmer territory and in neighbouring regions (fig.9). It is in this latter context that a vast mining and metallurgical complex, spread over 500 square kilometres and active for nearly 2,500 years, which has no other equivalent in Cambodia and the region, was recently identified and documented in the Chhaep region, 180 kilometres northeast of Angkor (fig. 10). In addition to being one of the sources of Angkorian copper, this complex constitutes one of the rare copper mines identified in Southeast Asia.

All of these approaches—functional, iconographic, stylistic, and technological—were called upon to re-examine the monumental bronze image of the reclining Vishnu of the West Mebon temple as part of the Vishnu Project (2019–25).
In addition to opening up new avenues of interpretation regarding the original location and sacred symbolism of the statue, this project has allowed the continuation of a technological study initiated in France in 2018 (where for five months, at the C2RMF in Paris, some forty scientists from various disciplines studied the Vishnu using cutting-edge techniques), as well as the conservation-restoration of the statue at the Arc'Antique laboratory in Nantes—two preliminary and essential steps for the renewed presentation of the work on the occasion of the exhibition. It was made possible thanks to a four-way Franco-Cambodian cooperation (National Museum of Cambodia, C2RMF, EFEO, and Musée Guimet), with the financial support of the Aliph Foundation.

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Seated bodhisattva
Cambodia; Angkor period, first half of 11th century
Gilded and inlaid bronze; height 58.5 cm
National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh (returned 2023) (NMC.2855)
Photo by Thierry Ollivier © Musée Guimet

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Standing dvarapala
Unknown provenance; Angkor period, 3rd quarter of 12th century
Gilded bronze; height 61 cm
National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh (NMC. 2691)
Photo by Thierry Ollivier © Musée Guimet

The exhibition ‘Royal Bronzes of Angkor, an Art of the Divine’ includes cultural properties recently returned to Cambodia following active campaigns by the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, supported by numerous international partners (figs 11 and 12). Khmer heritage has indeed been the victim of intense looting (stone and bronze statuary, architectural decoration, archaeological objects) in the context of the modern conflicts that have ravaged the country. For several decades now, Cambodia has seen vestiges of its very rich past leave its territory to supply the international art market and museum and private collections. The presentation of some of these works in the exhibition helps to raise awareness among visitors, especially the younger generations, of this large-scale restitution work, which is a source of multiple opportunities. It gives back to these masterpieces, some of which are being exhibited for the first time, the leading place they deserve within Khmer art.

Pierre Baptiste is Director of Conservation and Collections at the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques–Guimet.

David Bourgarit is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France (C2RMF).

Brice Vincent is Assistant Professor at the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO).

Thierry Zéphir is in charge of the Himalayan collection in the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques–Guimet.

‘Royal Bronzes of Angkor, an Art of the Divine’ will be on view at the Musée Guimet from 30 April to 8 September 2025 and at the Minneapolis Institute of Art from 25 October 2025 to 18 January 2026.

This article featured in our March/April 2025 print issue.

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Royal Bronzes of Angkor, an Art of the Divine

Pierre Baptiste, David Bourgarit, Brice Vincent, Thierry Zéphir

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