Travel Destinations » Salar Jung Museum

A Magnificent Obsession
It is not the usual sort of museum where you come across old coins, tools and pottery shards. And in a city renowned for domes and minarets, its exterior looks like an administrative office. But people have been coming in droves to see an eclectic collection they can relate to--the silver ornaments prize bulls were decorated with surais, pandaans, inlaid furniture and jewel encrusted swords and daggers belonging to royalty.

Thirty-five rooms in the Salar Jung Museum display one man’s magnificent obsession for art, curios and decorative objects from all over the world. Salar Jung III Mir Yousuf Ali, a bach expended his considerable until his sudden death in acquiring Greek marble, paintings, Bohemian glass, chandeliers, suites of and Oriental furniture, European, Chinese and Japaporcelain, English and Indian I metalware, books and monmascripts and other objects be- Anging in the main to the seven eighteenth and nineteenth ambuies. These were originally bloused in Dewar Deorhi, the mansion belonging to the Abaof s chief ministers. It is now as open market, we are told.

The collection was shifted to & present premises on the south Inak of the Musi river in 1968. The museums director Dr. AKVS lbddy talks about its expansion pingram. “Since the exhibits are romped and since a large number of them have to be stored away at any given moment, plans are afoot to have two wore buildings on either side. The number of rooms wall then increase 1b 50 and the present building will display the Indkan objects, and The new ones, the European and Oriental collections.”

It is a delight to see the Indian silverware. Even as we admire the variety and workmanship, we think of the gradous times when many of the were in daily use. Astonishing are the framed Chinese and Japanese works of embroidery, heir silken strokes can easily be mistaken for paintings. Entire collections, of Chinese snuff boxes, Celadon ware, blue and white porcelain, enamelware, Japanese screens and samurai swords, as well as French Sevres and German Dresden pieces are priceless indeed.

Visitors are overwhelmed by the clear white and colored Venetian chandeliers which hang en masse in the entrance foyer. Most visitors stop by RW Densker’s portrait of Salar Jung III, before they branch out. And quite a few of them are drawn to the hall of Italian paintings, particularly Francesco Hayez’s Soap Bubbles and Marzoline’s Picking Out a Thorn.

We linger in Room 25, a stronghold of precious jade, crystal and jeweled objects, belonging in the main to the Mughal and Asaf Jahi royalty. Here are Noorjehan’s slim jade dagger and Jehangir’s more ornate one, Shahjehan’s archery ring and Aurangzeb’s dagger encrusted with jewels. The jades are translucent white and dark green: mirror cases, salvers, wine cups, fly whisks, some bejewelled. Cut-standing were the glittering darbar swords of the Salar Jungs, their hilts covered with uncut and rose cut dia- monds as well superb damascene work in gold.

And before we leave, we make sure to see Benzoni’s masterpiece, the Veiled Rebecca—the demure, Biblical maiden seen through the diaphanous folds of her garments.