The Salar Jung Museum is an art museum at Dar-Ul-Shifa, on the southern bank of the Musi river in the city of Hyderabad and has an exquisite collection of priceless articles like Ivory, Marble sculptures etc.
The museum opened to the public on December 16, 1951. It is the world’s largest one man collection of artifacts. It houses the collection of the Salar Jung family, who were important nobles in the courts of the Nizams — Muslim rulers of Hyderabad. The collection of Islamic art from all over Asia includes a variety of illuminated Korans, astrolabes, jewelled swords and daggers, and Persian carpets. The museum also houses fine examples of European painting and sculpture, most famously the Veiled Rebecca of Italian sculptor Giovanni Maria Benzoni, as well as Chinese and Japanese pieces. The collection was mostly acquired by Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, also known as Salar Jung III. Some of the items he inherited were collected by his father, Mir Laiq Ali Khan Salar Jung II and his grandfather, Nawab Mir Turab Ali Khan (Sir Salar Jung I).
The Museum has 40,000 pieces spread over 78 rooms of Dewan Devdi, an ancestral city palace of the Salar Jungs before moving to its present location.
The Indian collection chronicles the country's rich and diverse cultural heritage. Worth seeing are the standing limestone image of the Buddha from Nelakondapalli (2nd or 3rd century A.D.); Mukhalinga from Kausambi (4th or 5th century A.D.); Ananthasayi Vishnu with his ten avatars carved on top (12th century A.D., Kakatiyaa, Warangal); Jain, Buddhist and Hindu bronzes dating back to later Pallava and Chola periods etc.
In addition to the above, the museum has a few other galleries which showcases the oil paintings like the “Soap Bubbles” by Fransesco Hayez of Italy; “Piazzo of San Marco” by Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768) and “Venice” by Marc Aldine of Italy; pottery and glassware from Europe; porcelain from China etc.
