Museum · Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Bharat Kala Bhavan
The university museum of Banaras Hindu University, with more than 100,000 objects. Strong in miniature painting, sculpture and brocade textiles.
See first
- Mughal miniatures
- Rajasthani, Pahari and Gujarati painting
- Buddhist and Hindu sculpture
- Brocade textiles
- The Nicholas Roerich and Alice Boner galleries
The museum began on 1 January 1920 as the Bharatiya Lalit Kala Parishad, in a wing of a building in Godowlia. For the next four decades the collection moved around the city: to a school at Kamachha in 1926, to the Kashi Nagari Pracharini Sabha in 1929, where it took the name Bharat Kala Bhavan, and to the university in 1950. Rabindranath Tagore was its first chairman. Nehru laid the foundation of the present building in 1950 and opened it in 1962.
Gandhi visited three times. On the last he wrote, in Hindi, that the collection was very good.
It is larger than its fame. Holdings number 104,376, shown across fourteen galleries: Buddhist and Hindu sculpture, bronzes, manuscripts, Mughal miniatures, a strong run of Gujarati, Rajasthani and Pahari painting, brocades, jewellery and terracotta. Two galleries are given to single artists, Nicholas Roerich and Alice Boner.
Combine it with the city. The brocades make more sense after you have seen the looms.