Casting for the King – Honoring the Gods. The Art of Bronze at Angkor
Conference by Thierry Zephyr, Research Engineer, National Museum of Asian Arts – Guimet.
Thierry Zéphir's intervention for the Society of Friends of the Cernuschi Museum prefigures the exhibition “The Royal Bronzes of Angkor: An Art of the Divine” presented at the National Museum of Asian Arts – Guimet (MNAAG) between April 30 and September 8, 2025.
Following in the footsteps of major international exhibitions devoted to Khmer art, this event brings together, in a unique way, 126 works from the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, as well as several pieces from the collections of the Guimet Museum and other museum and private collections.
It takes shape under the joint aegis of the host museum, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia, the French School of the Far East (EFEO) and the Research and Restoration Center of the Museums of France (C2RMF), with the aim of providing an exhaustive panorama of Khmer bronze works, from protohistory to the 21st century.rd century. In addition to the joint curatorship of Guimet Museum curators Pierre Baptiste and Thierry Zephir, there is also the research work of art historian and archaeologist Brice Vincent, responsible for the excavations at the Angkor Royal Foundry, and C2RMF archaeometallurgist David Bourgarit.
In Cambodia, bronze is a material known as Samrit (សំរិត) and is traditionally worked using the lost-wax method for cult statuary. Since the protohistoric period, it has been linked to elites and royal commissions, which were the driving force behind the development of metal casting in the Khmer world.
A copper-based alloy, it contains a significant proportion of tin (10 to 30%) and possible additions of lead and other materials in smaller quantities.
 Map of copper deposits and mines in Cambodia. |
 Standing Buddha. 7th century. High-tin bronze. MNC, Ga 5406. |
 Male deity. Late 11th – early 12th century. Copper alloy, mercury gilding. MNC, Ga 2993. |
While the stylistic analysis of Khmer stone statuary is limited by the lack of adornments and costumes due to the disappearance of the ornamental elements added to these works, the bronzes preserve the richness of these indications, allowing us to date the works. Khmer statuary indeed presents very defined aesthetic and stylistic characteristics from one period to another.
Khmer iconography and aesthetics thus attest to a form of adaptation of Indian religious traditions. Despite a modification of religious and spiritual cults, the practice of Great Vehicle Buddhism in the pre-Angkorian period (7rd-8rd centuries) borrows from the aesthetics and iconography of India from the classical Gupta and Post-Gupta period (6rd-8rd centuries): we observe in particular slender bodies, stylized and even idealized in their proportions, echoing traditional Indian codes.
Due to chance discoveries or preservation in archaeological sites, the largest number of known metalworks from the pre-Angkorian period is Buddhist. However, inscriptions indicate the existence of Hindu metalworks from this period.
Buddhist imagery also developed throughout the Angkorian period (9rd-13rd s.), notably through the production of bronzes. The 11rd century proves to be particularly dynamic in the creation of metal works in Cambodia which continues in the 12thrd and at the beginning of the 13rd century, to which many major works are attached, notably monumental bronzes.
Through these productions, the examples illustrate again a form of Buddhism originating from Indian traditions, this time from the Pala period (8rd-12rd centuries), and an iconographic and semantic richness characteristic of Khmer bronzes of which the figures of the Buddha and bodhisattvas such as Lokeshvara and Maitreya are the image.
 Lokeshvara "radiant". 12th-13th century. Bronze. MA 5940. |
 Hevajra. Second half of the 12th century. Bronze, mercury gilding. Philippe and Kéo Daumont Collection. |
 Buddhist triad: Buddha enthroned on the naga, Lokeshvara, and Prajnaparamita. 12th-13th century. Bronze, mercury gilding. MNC. Ga.2424. |
 Gatekeeper – 12th-13th century. Bronze, mercury gilding. MNC 2691. |
Less supplied since the 6rd and 7rd centuries until the 10thrd century, the Hindu domain also became very rich from the 11thrd century, fueled in particular by a tantrism very present at the end of the 12thrd and beginning of the 13thrd century and which gives rise to spectacular and original images. Certain Buddhist attributes are thus deliberately razed on a statuary reinterpreted after the reign of Jayavarman VII (r. 1181-1218), to restore the spotlight to Hindu traditions and particularly Shaivism and Vishnuism, dominant currents in the Angkorian period.
The end of the 13rd century and the current of the 14thrd century observe a particular phenomenon combining an economic and political loss of Cambodia with a progressive rise of the Siamese kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya, capital of central Thailand, which became the dominant political force in continental Southeast Asia from the middle of the 14th century.rd century.
 Door dice depicting Indra on the three-headed elephant Airavata. Second half of the 10th century. Bronze, mercury gilding. Aziz Bassoul Collection. |
 Buddha Calling the Earth to Witness. Early 15th century. Leaded bronze, gilt. MNC GA 2722. |
 Incense burner. 12th century. Copper-based alloy. MNC GA 5730. |
To the 14rd and 15rd centuries, Cambodia thus turned permanently towards the original Buddhism of the Small Vehicle practiced in the Siamese kingdoms, giving rise to a complete reversal of worship and religious traditions, for more sober artistic and statuary creations.
When Ayutthaya conquered Angkor in 1431, the change in the political, religious and artistic situation in Cambodia led the productions of Khmer foundries to be inspired by central Thailand, to the point of a lack of distinction in the geographical focus of the works.
Over the centuries, for the post-Angkorian period, we note a loss of quality in the manufacture of more geometric and hastily modeled bronze pieces.
The exhibition also presents a series of less familiar objects, votive, ritual, structural, utilitarian or decorative: from musical or ablution conches to metallic architectural decorations, including molds for making clay tablets for pilgrims, or barge rudder or prow ends, for example.
 Vishnu Anantashayin (front). 11th century. Bronze, mercury gilding, silver, lead, and cinnabar. MNC GA. 5387. |
 Vishnu Anantashayin (back). 11th century. Bronze, mercury gilding, silver, lead, and cinnabar. MNC GA. 5387. |
Finally, the highlight of the event is the reassembly to the original dimensions of the fragments of the Vishnu Anantashayin of the Western Mebon, located in the center of the Western Baray to the west of the Angkor site. Found in December 1936 by the archaeologists of the French School of the Far East, Maurice Glaise (1886-1964) and Henri Marchal (1876-1970), the reclining Vishnu, piece of the 11rd century, takes up an Indian cosmogonic model with complex iconography of which numerous Khmer versions exist from the pre-Angkorian period.
Through the innovative presentation of known works and the unprecedented exhibition of works revealed to the general public on this occasion, this project thus results from the current intense developments in archaeological research and technological studies carried out on the subject of Khmer bronzes and their riches.
Amber Geneva
