Salar Jung Museum

The "Founder's Gallery" houses portraits of Salar Jung III, as well as other members of the Salar Jung family.

The Indian block includes jade-crafted daggers[9] of Jahangir, Nur Jahan and Shah Jahan; and weapons belonging to Aurangzeb, Tipu Sultan, Muhammad Shah, Bahadur Shah and Abul Hasan Qutb Shah.[10][11]

Indian miniature paintings belonging to the Mughal, Rajasthani, Thanjavur and Deccan schools are displayed. Indian sculptures from the Gandhara and Chola periods are also displayed.

Stolen Interview by Raja Ravi Varma

Disappointing News by Raja Ravi Varma

Anantashayana Vishnu in granite, from the Chola period, 11th century CE

Lakshmi Narayan in granite, from the Vijayanagara period, 15th century CE

Indian collections of the Museum

The museum also has a collection of modern Indian artworks from the Bengal school. Works by Raja Ravi Varma, Abdur Rahman Chughtai,[12] M.F. Hussain,[13] K.K. Hebbar, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanidranath Tagore[14] and Nandalal Bose are displayed.[10]

One of the most significant possessions of the museum is the sculpture of Veiled Rebecca by Italian sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni. It is one of four copies made by the sculptor. The other three are in various museums of the US.

European Art from the British, French and Italian schools is displayed. Among the notable artists whose works are displayed are Canaletto, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Francesco Hayez.[14][10]

The furniture collection includes pieces from the time of King Louis XIV and Napoleon. Salar Jung III collected about 43,000 artifacts and 50,000 books and manuscripts out of which only few are displayed in today's museum.[15][16][17]

The Eastern block houses Japanese artworks, porcelain artifacts, samurai swords and sculptures from China, Japan, Tibet and Burma.[18]

The museum has a famous Quran collection, from around the world in different fonts and designs, called the Quran Written with Gold and Silver. There are many more collections of religious books, as well as Arabic Quran.[19]

The Veiled Rebecca at Salar Jung Museum

A variety and array of clocks greet the visitor in the clock room. There are ancient sundials in the form of obelisks to huge and modern clocks of the twentieth century. Others in the range vary from miniature clocks which need a magnifying glass to imbibe their beauty and complexity to stately grandfather clocks from as far away as France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Britain including the musical clock Salar Jung bought from Cook and Kelvey of England. Every hour, a timekeeper emerges from the upper deck of the clock to strike a gong as many times as it is the hours of the day. The clock is an antique.

The Salar Jung Museum possesses a good number of clocks collected from different European countries such as France, England, Switzerland, Germany, Holland etc. The variety includes the Bird cage clocks, Bracket clocks, Grandfather clocks, Skeleton clocks, etc. The museum is also having some good examples of the clocks of the contemporary period of Louis XV, Louis XVI, and Napoleon 1st of France. The most important clock which attracts the greatest number of visitors everyday is however, a British Bracket clock. It has got a mechanical device by which a miniature toy figure comes out of an enclosure and strikes the gong and then returns to the enclosure at each hour.[20]

The Indian Parliament has declared the museum an Institution of National Importance.