Artist home · Kolkata, West Bengal
Jorasanko Thakur Bari
The Tagore family house in north Kolkata, where Rabindranath was born in 1861. Now the Rabindra Bharati Museum, with galleries for the family and for the Bengal School.
See first
- The Bengal School gallery
- Galleries for Abanindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore
- The Western Art Gallery: portraits of the family and house
- Bichitra Bhavan, built by Rabindranath in 1897
- The restored family rooms of Maharshi Bhavan
Nilmoni Thakur built the house at Jorasanko in 1784, on land given to the family by the Setts of Burrabazar. The name is from two small footbridges, sanko, that crossed the marshy ground. Dwarkanath Tagore, Rabindranath’s grandfather, enlarged it, and Rabindranath was born there in 1861.
For art, the loss is as important as what remains. Next door stood the Boithak Khana Bari, built in 1823 to receive European visitors. It became the home of Girindranath Tagore’s family and the art workspace of Abanindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore, two of the leading figures of the Bengal School. It was pulled down in 1943.
The surviving house, now called Maharshi Bhavan, has been restored to how the family lived. Rabindra Bharati University was set up here in 1961, for the poet’s centenary, and the museum followed a year later. Its galleries cover the family and the Bengal Renaissance, the Bengal School, and the Western Art Gallery of family portraits.
Photography is not allowed inside.