Image: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Cambodia’s most important bronze artwork arrives in the Bay Area with a special ceremony. ‘Vishnu’s Cosmic Ocean’ is organized by the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, in collaboration with the Guimet-National Museum of Asian Arts in France, and includes exceptional loans from the National Museum of Cambodia granted by the Royal Government.
The work is described as Southeast Asia’s largest ancient bronze and as a nearly twenty-foot-long statue, offering an opportunity to see it in San Francisco before it returns to Cambodia. A detail is identified as ‘West Mebon Reclining Vishnu (detail), National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.’
The ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, October 25, at 11:30 AM in Bogart Court. Its program begins with a Temple Water Blessing by Wat Dhammararam Temple, followed at noon by a dance performance from the Morodok Angkor Dance Troupe and Proleung Seilaphak. The blessed water offers wishes for protection, good fortune, and well-being to the historical artwork as well as to all ceremony attendees.
The conservation of the Reclining Vishnu of West Mebon was made possible through financial support from the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage, or ALIPH, and scientific collaboration with the Ecole Française d’Extrême Orient, the Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, and the Guimet-National Museum of Asian Arts in France.
