Place · national museum · India
National Museum, New Delhi
Also known as National Museum, National Museum Delhi, National Museum of India
The subcontinent's national museum at Janpath, opened in 1960 by Rajendra Prasad in a Ganesh Bhikaji Deolalikar building, holding India's primary national-level collection of art and archaeology from Harappan to the twentieth century. The 200,000-object collection includes the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro, the Didarganj Yakshi, the Gandhara Buddhas, Chola bronzes, Mughal and Rajput miniatures, Thanjavur paintings, and Alexander's Macedonian coins from Begram. The museum's 2023 closure for incorporation into the Yuga Yugeen Bharat Museum project at the North and South Blocks represented the most consequential post-1960 restructuring of Indian national museum provision.
- Date
- 1960–None
- Function
- Learning & scholarship
- Patron dynasty
- Indian Union
- Tradition
- Standard reference; INTACH, ASI and municipal records; institutional histories.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.612, 77.219
Connections (1)
- Site withinDelhi
The National Museum sits on Janpath in central New Delhi within the Lutyens plan's institutional core, opened in 1960 as the subcontinent's national-level art and archaeology collection. The museum defines Delhi's cultural institutional geography and its 2023 reorganisation into the Yuga Yugeen Bharat Museum project at the Secretariat blocks will reshape central Delhi's cultural landscape.