National Museum of Fine Arts, Hanoi

The Hanoi Fine Arts museum is a repository of the art and cultural heritage of Vietnam. It has exhibits from the Bronze Age to contemporary works by modern artists. Many of the exhibits are reproductions of artifacts lost during the Indochina Wars.

The Hanoi Museum of Fine Arts is housed in a beautiful colonial building. The architecture of the building is a combination of classical European style with native Vietnamese details. At first the building was a school for girls belonging to families of high ranking officers in the colonial government. Later the building was used by the French Ministry of Information.

The ground floor of the museum has ancient artifacts. There are many sandstone sculptures from the Champa and the Funan Kingdoms. The evolution of the art of lacquer in Vietnam is beautifully depicted at the museum. The second floor has twentieth century paintings by Vietnamese artists including unique lacquer based paintings. The new wing of the museum has Chinese watercolors on the first floor and the second floor has costumes and decorative arts of the different Vietnamese ethnic groups. The most fascinating exhibit is the, ‘One Thousand Eye, One Thousand Arm Guan Yin’, a sculpture of a Hindu Goddess backed by a disk into which one thousand arms are carved.

There are souvenir shops selling paintings and other gift articles in the elevated walkway from the old museum to the new wing.