FROM THE RED RIVER TO THE MEKONG DELTA

Masterpieces of the History Museum-Ho Chi Minh City

Description

From the 2nd century ce to the 19th century, the people of the fertile estuary of the great Mekong River created treasures of art, architecture, religion and accomplished feats of water engineering that are coming to light through Vietnam’s vigorous and well-funded archaeological research programmes. The large wooden, stilted houses of Óc Eo, the early Venice of the maritime routes of the East in the earliest centuries of the first millennium, drew in ships with precious cargoes from Rome, India and China to trade while waiting for the change of the monsoon wind to continue their voyages. The Chinese annals record that the early polity they called ‘Funan’ ruled 1,000 km of coastline along the shipping route. 

The Ho Chi Minh Museum collection, as well as housing the world’s pre-eminent collection of the early art of the Mekong Delta, also conserves a vast array of the art of Vietnam from the prehistoric Dong Son period of the Red River Delta in the north and the powerful Hindu and Buddhist art of the former kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam. This includes an exceptional 9th century 1.3 m bronze Buddha from a huge monastery at Dong Duong in Champa which French historian George Cɶdès declared the finest ever made anywhere.

Among the earliest Mekong Delta icons from the early first millennium of the Common Era is a 2.7 m tall hardwood Buddha carved in 4th-6th century that has survived more than 1,000 years, and a 29 cm bronze Buddha that arrived on a trading ship from the 6th century Chinese Northern Qi dynasty. Hindu carvings include early Vishnu statues wear high, floral mitres and and stone lingas bearing Shiva’s face, as well as a superb gold ring cast with an image of Shiva’s bull.

The museum also holds an immense collection of the art and imperial furnishings of the last Vietnamese dynasty, the Nguyen, founded in the Mekong Delta at the beginning of the 19th century, and which peopled the delta with rice farms and industries. Inlaid wooden chests and cabinets, sets of the finest ‘Hue’ blue and white ceramics, silken court costumes and impressive wooden and ceramic Buddha statues attest to the power and wealth of the dynasty.