Museum · Mumbai, Maharashtra
Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum
Mumbai's oldest museum, opened in 1872 as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bombay. A museum of the city's decorative arts and history, in a restored Victorian building.
See first
- The restored interior itself
- Clay models of the people and trades of the city
- Maps and historical photographs of Mumbai
- The seventeenth-century Hatim Tai manuscript
- The Kala Ghoda statue and the Elephanta elephant, in the grounds
The museum came out of the great exhibitions. Objects from the Bombay Presidency sent to London in 1851 and Paris in 1855 had duplicates, and those duplicates became the nucleus of a museum, first opened in 1856. The present building in Jijamata Udyan, Byculla, was built between 1862 and 1871 with money from David Sassoon, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, Jaganath Shunkerseth and others, and opened on 2 May 1872 as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bombay. In 1975 it was renamed for Bhau Daji Lad, the physician and historian who had helped raise the funds.
In 2003 INTACH, the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation and the city corporation began a five-year refurbishment, and the restoration by Vikas Dilawari won a UNESCO Asia-Pacific award in 2005. A second, smaller restoration ended on 8 January 2025.
The collection is about Mumbai: maps, photographs, clay models, silver and copperware, costume. The museum also keeps the black stone statue that gave Kala Ghoda its name, and outside stands a basalt elephant from Elephanta Island.