In Samuel Eilenberg's major gift of sixty-seven South and Southeast Asian works of art, including Chola-period (846–1279) sculptures and other Indian and Pakistani works, the most significant part, in terms of art history and the needs of our collection, dates from the Southeast Asian Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 500 B.C.–A.D. 300). Older than the earliest Buddhist and Hindu bronze sculptures from Southeast Asia, the objects in the Eilenberg Collection demonstrate the superb craftsmanship and technological expertise developed early on in the area.

This Bronze Age culture is usually referred to as the "Dongson," after a village in northern Vietnam excavated by French archaeologists in the 1930s. Parallel Bronze Age cultures in Indonesia and Thailand share a vocabulary of similar motifs and shapes, which range from large bronze drums, often with figural decorations, found mostly in Vietnam, to the more widely distributed bracelets and other objects with bold spiral designs. There is also a stylistic affiliation with bronzes of the Dian kingdom in Yunnan, China.

The Eilenberg gift, along with a few important "Dongson"-culture bronzes acquired from other sources, makes the Museum's collection virtually unrivaled in the Western world for the study of this material.