Place · art museum · India
Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad
Also known as Salar Jung Museum, Salar Jung
One of the largest single-collector art collections in the world, assembled over three generations by the Salar Jungs — the prime ministers of the Nizams. Mir Yousuf Ali Khan Salar Jung III, who died in 1949, put together perhaps 40,000 of the 40,000-odd objects now on display, from Mughal daggers and Bidri ware through European marbles and Japanese lacquer to the Veiled Rebecca and a double statue of Mephistopheles-Margaretta. Opened as a public museum in 1951 and declared an Institution of National Importance.
- Date
- 1951–None
- Function
- Learning & scholarship
- Patron dynasty
- Asaf Jahi · Indian Union
- Tradition
- Salar Jung Museum catalogues; Ministry of Culture publications; the Salar Jung family archive.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 17.371, 78.480
Worth knowing
The famous Veiled Rebecca by Giovanni Benzoni was bought by Salar Jung I at the Rome studio in 1876. The Mephistopheles-Margaretta double figure is carved from a single piece of sycamore so that from one side it is the devil and from the other the maiden; one of the collection's most-visited pieces. The library holds some 60,000 Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Sanskrit manuscripts and rare printed books.
Connections (1)
- Site withinHyderabad
The Salar Jung Museum sits on the Musi's south bank in the heart of old Hyderabad, holding one of the largest single-family collections anywhere — assembled over three generations by the Salar Jung prime ministers of the Nizams and opened as a public museum in 1951. Its presence in the city is one of the chief reasons Hyderabad was declared the Pearl City and a Heritage City in the republic.