The orange sun turns a deep hue of red, streaking across the motley clouds, as they blot the light into their being, turning them into liquid gold. The turrets of the old palaces catch the golden glint and twinkle right back as the coconut fronds sway in the evening breeze. The black burkha-clad women, laden with food for the evening meal hurry into the sunset…Kaleidoscopic images of old Hyderabad. Within these images is another — of the Salar Jung Museum nestled amid them, right across the water body flowing through the city of the Nizams.
The first time I went to the Salar Jung Museum, I couldn’t help but be reminded of an expensive curio shop! Exhibits clamoured for space with each other in the most haphazard fashion. It was as if there was no concept of a storage and all that there was, had to be exhibited as if there was a best before date attached to them! And one wondered whether there was some method in the madness or was it a haphazard collection of curios that caught one man’s fancy? But Salar Jung’s collection grew on me in subsequent visits.
The collection celebrates Indian craftsmanship and gives credence to the lack of differentiation between art and craft, historically speaking. The fact that the Salar Jungs had the sense of historical perspective to have made this collection itself was a commendable step in the right direction. However, what it lacks in terms of the aesthetics of display, it more than makes up in content.
The museum is a major repository of Indian, European, Middle Eastern, Far Eastern and Asian art in Southern India. Declared an institution of national importance by the Indian Parliament, the major part of this collection was acquired by Mir Yousuf Ali Khan; popularly know as Salar Jung III. He inherited quite a few pieces from his father Nawab Mir Laiq Ali Khan Salar Jung II and his grandfather Nawab Turab Ali Khan, Sir Salar Jung I.
Salar Jung III devoted himself completely to his passion of collecting art. Wedded to his collections, he died a bachelor in 1949, following which a government appointed committee administered the collection and in a bid to perpetrate his name; his residential palace was converted into a museum in 1951.
The greater part of the museum’s collection is from the 18th and the 19th century. There are chess and chausar sets, paper cutters, delicately carved boxes, bedsteads and miniature paintings. Among the objects of European ivory, a set of four chairs presented to Tipu Sultan by Louis XVI make you want to sit on them! A masculine collection would certainly be incomplete without arms and armour: The arms of Aurangzeb, Tipu Sultan, Mohammad Shah, Bahadur Shah Zafar and a sword from the Qutab Shahi period also find pride of place here.
While there are constraints of space in the display for the sheer size and variety of objects that form part of the collection, it can’t be denied that it is an amazing collection and more so for it was collected largely by a single individual. And one looks forward to a re-organised museum in the near future, where the form of display will do justice to the content.
Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist