BACKGROUND
Here’s some of what the Lonely Planet – India chapter Rajasthan has to say about Mehrangarh’s Museum:
“The fort’s museum encompasses the fort’s former palace, and is a superb example of Rajput architecture. The network of courtyards and halls features stone-lattice work so finely carved that it often looks more like sandalwood than sandstone. The galleries around Shringar Chowk (Anointment Courtyard) display India’s best collection of elephant howdahs and Jodhpur’s royal palanquin collection.
One of the two galleries off Daulat Khana Chowk displays textiles, paintings, manuscripts, headgear and the curved sword of the Mughal emperor Akbar; the other gallery is the armoury.
There is a fabulous gallery of miniature paintings from the sophisticated Marwar school and the beautiful 18th-century Phul Mahal (Flower Palace), with 19th-century wall paintings of classical ragas as well as royal portraits; the artist took 10 years to create them using a curious concoction of gold leaf, glue and cow’s urine.”
KAPOORS ON THE ROAD
We’ve never seen a better-quality museum anywhere in India. It’s a sad fact, that most government museums are so poorly funded that at times we’re shocked that the treasures of this vast country are not better preserved, and better displayed.
Much of what was on display I’d seen on previous visits, but there were plenty of changes since 2013, all progressive ones, and I was startled that there an item or two that I thought was new to me, but when I checked my old photos, I found they’d interested me enough that I’d taken a picture after all. There’s so much to see, I’ll put it down to sensory overload.
I suppose some of the success of Mehrangar’s museum is that it has the still-living Maharaja and his very capable daughter behind the efforts carried out here in Jodhpur. If you haven’t done so already, you might want to read about the Maharaja and his daughter in the excerpts from a Smithsonian Magazine article, I’ve copied into a separate journal entry. It’s the entry just two back from one.
I think you’ll probably appreciate the photos I’ve shared in the journal entries about the Royal Apartments and the Zenana (women’s quarters) a little more if you do.