Salar Jung Museum

The Salar Jung Museum is an art museum located at Dar-ul-Shifa, on the southern bank of the Musi River in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. It holds the status of a national museum, recognized as one of the three national museums in the country and ranking among the largest museums on the subcontinent. The institution is distinguished by its origin as the private art collection of the Salar Jung family, specifically Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, Salar Jung III, who served as Prime Minister under the Nizam of Hyderabad. Endowed to the nation after his death, the museum is renowned for housing what is considered the largest collection of antiquities in the world assembled by a single individual, encompassing a vast array of global art and artifacts.

Nawab Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, Salar Jung III, served as the diwan, or prime minister, to the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad. He resigned in 1914 after only two years in the position, dedicating the next thirty-five years of his life and a substantial portion of his income to acquiring art from across the globe. Upon his death in 1949, his vast collection remained in his ancestral palace, Diwan Devdi, where it was initially displayed as a private museum across thirty rooms. This private museum was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru on 16 December 1951. After the collection was cataloged over a two-year period by G. Venkatchalam, the museum was declared a museum of national importance and nationalized in 1961 under the Salar Jung Museum Act. The state subsequently organized a design competition for a new building, selecting Mohammed Fayazuddin as the architect. Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone in 1963, and the museum shifted to its current site in 1968, where it is administered by a board of trustees with the governor of Telangana serving as the ex officio chairperson. The collection suffered significant losses over the years; old timers believe the current holdings represent only half of the original art wealth, as employees siphoned off pieces due to the Nawab's reliance on his staff for security, and further items were lost or stolen during the physical relocation of the museum. In 2003, the institution signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Mission for Manuscripts and was declared a manuscript conservation centre. A fire broke out in an auditorium on the premises in 2006, but it was quickly extinguished without damaging any artifacts, leading to subsequent upgrades in fire safety facilities.

The museum's holdings encompass approximately 50,000 exhibited objects, though the total collection is estimated to number around one million items. The scope of the collection is global, with artifacts originating from India, China, Japan, Burma, Nepal, Persia, Egypt, Europe, North America, and West Europe. The holdings are broadly classified into Indian Art, Middle Eastern Art, Far Eastern Art, European Art, and a Children's Section, alongside a Founder's Gallery dedicated to the Salar Jung family. The diverse assemblage includes sculptures, paintings, carvings, textiles, manuscripts, ceramics, metallic artifacts, carpets, clocks, furniture, coins, bronzes, bidri ware, glass, and weapons. The Indian collection is further categorized into galleries for Indian bronzes, textiles, sculptures, minor arts of South India, miniature paintings, ivory carvings, arms and armor, metal ware, and jade carving.

The museum's Indian miniature painting collection spans several schools, including Mughal, Rajasthani, Thanjavur, Malwa, and Deccan, with notable works such as The Birth of the Prince, the 16th-century Madonna with Child showing European influence, the 17th-century Prince with a Hawk, and King with Nobles. Deccan school highlights include the 16th-century Bhog Bal manuscript, a Golconda school painting of Jamshed Quli and Ibrahim Quli in conversation, and a Bijapur school painting of Elephants in a Fight. Modern Indian painting is represented by two works by Ravi Verma, Stolen Interview and The Kerela Beauty, alongside pieces by Abdur Rahman Chughtai, M.F. Husain, K.K. Hebbar, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, and Nandalal Bose. The ivory collection features a carved chair gifted to Tipu Sultan by Louis XVI, notable for its lattice backrest and lion head armrests, as well as an intricately crafted ivory lamp from Mysore. The Indian block also includes jade-crafted daggers belonging to Jahangir, Nur Jahan, and Shah Jahan, and weapons owned by Aurangzeb, Tipu Sultan, Muhammad Shah, Bahadur Shah, and Abul Hasan Qutb Shah, alongside sculptures from the Gandhara and Chola periods. European art highlights include The Veiled Rebecca by Italian sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni, of which only four versions exist worldwide, as well as paintings by the Dutch and Belgian artists Wouterus Verschuur and Edmond Van der Haeghen.

The museum is situated at Dar-ul-Shifa, approximately 1.5 kilometers south of the main railway station, on the southern bank of the Musi River. The current structure was purpose-built to house the collection after a design competition was held by the state, resulting in the selection of architect Mohammed Fayazuddin. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1963, and the institution officially moved from Diwan Devdi palace to this new site in 1968.

Located in Hyderabad, Telangana, the Salar Jung Museum operates as a national museum administered by a board of trustees under the provisions of the Salar Jung Museum Act of 1961. The governor of Telangana serves as the ex officio chairperson of the board. The institution functions as a manuscript conservation centre following a 2003 agreement with the National Mission for Manuscripts. It maintains an official website and engages with digital audiences through platforms such as Google Arts and Culture.