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Great and Good Friends
The exhibition Great and Good Friends: Historic Gifts between the Kingdom of Thailand and the United States of America, 1818-2018, celebrates 200 years of friendship between the United States and Thailand, which began with a letter sent from Somdet Chao Phraya Dit Bunnag to President James Monroe, the earliest known correspondence between the two nations.
Great and Good Friends underscores the significant bilateral ties—in trade, education, health, and people-to-people exchange—that helped established Thailand as America’s oldest treaty ally in the region. The exhibition will feature royal gifts from Their Majesties King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit, King Prajadhipok, King Chulalongkorn, and King Mongkut to and from respective American presidents. Most of these gifts have never been seen by the public, and many will be displayed in Thailand for the first time. The gifts tell a story of two worlds uniting on the basis of goodwill and understanding.
The exhibition represents unprecedented cooperation between leading Thai and American cultural institutions, including contributions from the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and its presidential libraries, the Library of Congress, King Prajadhipok’s Institute, the National Museum Bangkok, the Thai Department of Fine Arts, and the Thai Film Archive. Only a few of the 79 items that will be included in the exhibition have ever been displayed in public.
Video by U.S. Embassy Bangkok
For more information about the exhibition: https://www.greatandgoodfriends.com