via Viet Nam News, 11 June 2023: In the global trend of repatriating looted art and artefacts, forensic archaeologists and authorities are aiming to return stolen items to their rightful countries, including a potential future focus on antiques from Vietnam, which suffered great losses during the French colonisation of Indochina.
While the Southeast Asian section on display of the Metropolitan Museum could have been identified by forensic archaeologist, a long bloody and painful colonisation of Indochina by the French should lead to more work to be identified and repatriated in the future.
It will be difficult to get a true handle on just how much the nation has been plundered. Just last autumn, Việt Nam’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism sent a delegation to France to negotiate with French auction house Millon to repatriate a gold seal of Nguyễn Dynasty’s Emperor Minh Mạng created in 1823.
The Đại Nam Kingdom was invaded by the French Second Empire in 1858, following French ships’ attack on Tourane, today’s Đà Nẵng.
The Nguyễn Court had surrendered three southern provinces to the French, and three others were captured by force later. In 1884, the Treaty of Huế was signed, in which the Tonkin (North Việt Nam proper), Annam (Centre) were protectorate regions, the Cochinchina (South Việt Nam proper) was a French colony, and the royal court was also put under French supervision.
