<p>The moment you step into the Salar Jung Museum, located right in the middle of Hyderabad’s bustling old city, the air feels cooler, quieter, as if the noise of the city has been carefully folded away.</p>.<p>Your footsteps echo faintly against polished floors, and your eyes wander before your mind can catch up. It’s the small things that pull you in: a delicate curve in an ivory carving, the fine cracks in an ancient clock face, the way light settles softly on glass cases. You pause without realising, drawn to miniature paintings no bigger than your palm, each bursting with impossible detail.</p>.<p>Somewhere, a clock ticks, steady and patient, while a faint scent of old wood and time lingers. You notice the worn edges of display labels, the slightly uneven alignment of artefacts — reminders that this place is lived-in, not staged. As you move from room to room, curiosity replaces any plan. You’re not just seeing history, you’re quietly discovering it.</p>.<p>This year, the grand old museum is celebrating its 75th year. It pays homage to a one-of-a-kind institution that has reshaped India’s cultural heritage. The museum traces its origins to Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, the Prime Minister of Hyderabad under the Nizam, who, after resigning in 1914, turned wholly towards collecting art, antiquities, manuscripts, and objects of curiosity from across the world. For over three decades, he amassed thousands of treasures, often through agents, auctions, and personal travels, building what is now considered one of the largest single-family collections ever assembled.</p>.<p>After he died in 1949, this vast collection, once housed in his ancestral palace, Dewan Deodi, was transformed into a public institution, inaugurated in 1951. Today, the museum stands not merely as a repository, but as a sweeping narrative of global artistic exchange. Within its galleries lie as many as 48,367 objects spanning continents and centuries: European sculptures, Persian carpets, Indian miniatures, Japanese silk paintings, Chinese porcelain, and rare manuscripts in Arabic and Persian.</p>.<p>What makes the museum remarkable is not just its scale, but its eclectic intimacy. One moment, you encounter the ethereal marble of the famed ‘Veiled Rebecca’; the next, an intricate jade dagger once held by Mughal royalty, or a clock that springs to life with mechanical precision. Each gallery feels like a fragment of a larger, wandering story. It’s a testament to life itself, unbound by geography yet united by human craftsmanship.</p>.<p>Beyond its exhibits, the museum unfolds as a living institution: dozens of galleries, a vast reference library, conservation labs, and quiet reading spaces all contribute to its enduring relevance. It is less a static archive and more a dialogue across time—a grounded reality where the personal passion of one collector continues to invite generations into a shared, ever-expanding world of art and history.</p>.<p><strong>Trees, flowers and more</strong></p>.<p>To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the museum is preparing a year-long itinerary filled with rotating exhibitions, lectures, cultural performances, and much more. To kick off the celebrations, the opening exhibition features the works of Rumale Chennabasaviah.<br>With 84 items on display — from paintings to sketches, and even some of Rumale’s personal belongings — the exhibition acts as a thoughtful bridge between Bengaluru and Hyderabad, two cities bound by layered histories and evolving artistic identities.</p>.<p>Known for his fondness for Bengaluru’s trees, Rumale devoted his work to capturing the living, breathing landscape of Karnataka.</p>.<p class="bodytext">While you’ll find hints of Van Gogh and Monet in his work, his canvases are deeply rooted in place, filled with lush gulmohur-lined avenues, quiet parks, and fleeting seasonal blooms, rendered with energetic brushstrokes and a striking refusal to overwork colour, often letting it blend directly on the canvas.</p>.<p class="bodytext">What makes this exhibition significant is not just its artistic merit, but its movement across regions, shared Shabala Kabe, who helps her brother, Sanjay Kabe, in the running of the Rumale Art House in Bengaluru. “The exhibition showcases the beauty of Bengaluru through the eyes of Rumale and how we have blooms almost throughout the year,” she said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Rumale’s work, long associated with Bengaluru’s visual memory, now inhabits the historic galleries of Hyderabad, creating a dialogue between the southern cultural centres. His paintings, at once documentary and deeply personal, carry with them the textures of one city into another. In doing so, the exhibition transforms the museum into a meeting ground — one where Hyderabad encounters Bengaluru not through geography, but through colour, memory, and the enduring language of art.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The museum is keen on bringing in similar collaborations throughout the year, shared Joyoti Roy, Curator (Education) at the museum. “The focus will be on marking the milestone with intellectually engaging programmes, including lectures and collaborations that bring together historians, scholars, and cultural practitioners. We’re also planning to release a book on the museum,” she said, adding that the idea is to use the anniversary not just for celebration, but also to deepen public engagement with the museum’s legacy and collections.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Although the original Dewan Deodi no longer stands, the modern galleries of the Salar Jung Museum still carry its spirit. As you move through its halls, the objects, light, and quiet continuity of history gently recreate the feeling of stepping back into another time.</p>.<p class="bodytext"><span class="italic">Inaugurated on April 15, the works of Rumale will be on display at the museum till May 25.</span></p>
<p>The moment you step into the Salar Jung Museum, located right in the middle of Hyderabad’s bustling old city, the air feels cooler, quieter, as if the noise of the city has been carefully folded away.</p>.<p>Your footsteps echo faintly against polished floors, and your eyes wander before your mind can catch up. It’s the small things that pull you in: a delicate curve in an ivory carving, the fine cracks in an ancient clock face, the way light settles softly on glass cases. You pause without realising, drawn to miniature paintings no bigger than your palm, each bursting with impossible detail.</p>.<p>Somewhere, a clock ticks, steady and patient, while a faint scent of old wood and time lingers. You notice the worn edges of display labels, the slightly uneven alignment of artefacts — reminders that this place is lived-in, not staged. As you move from room to room, curiosity replaces any plan. You’re not just seeing history, you’re quietly discovering it.</p>.<p>This year, the grand old museum is celebrating its 75th year. It pays homage to a one-of-a-kind institution that has reshaped India’s cultural heritage. The museum traces its origins to Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, the Prime Minister of Hyderabad under the Nizam, who, after resigning in 1914, turned wholly towards collecting art, antiquities, manuscripts, and objects of curiosity from across the world. For over three decades, he amassed thousands of treasures, often through agents, auctions, and personal travels, building what is now considered one of the largest single-family collections ever assembled.</p>.<p>After he died in 1949, this vast collection, once housed in his ancestral palace, Dewan Deodi, was transformed into a public institution, inaugurated in 1951. Today, the museum stands not merely as a repository, but as a sweeping narrative of global artistic exchange. Within its galleries lie as many as 48,367 objects spanning continents and centuries: European sculptures, Persian carpets, Indian miniatures, Japanese silk paintings, Chinese porcelain, and rare manuscripts in Arabic and Persian.</p>.<p>What makes the museum remarkable is not just its scale, but its eclectic intimacy. One moment, you encounter the ethereal marble of the famed ‘Veiled Rebecca’; the next, an intricate jade dagger once held by Mughal royalty, or a clock that springs to life with mechanical precision. Each gallery feels like a fragment of a larger, wandering story. It’s a testament to life itself, unbound by geography yet united by human craftsmanship.</p>.<p>Beyond its exhibits, the museum unfolds as a living institution: dozens of galleries, a vast reference library, conservation labs, and quiet reading spaces all contribute to its enduring relevance. It is less a static archive and more a dialogue across time—a grounded reality where the personal passion of one collector continues to invite generations into a shared, ever-expanding world of art and history.</p>.<p><strong>Trees, flowers and more</strong></p>.<p>To celebrate its 75th anniversary, the museum is preparing a year-long itinerary filled with rotating exhibitions, lectures, cultural performances, and much more. To kick off the celebrations, the opening exhibition features the works of Rumale Chennabasaviah.<br>With 84 items on display — from paintings to sketches, and even some of Rumale’s personal belongings — the exhibition acts as a thoughtful bridge between Bengaluru and Hyderabad, two cities bound by layered histories and evolving artistic identities.</p>.<p>Known for his fondness for Bengaluru’s trees, Rumale devoted his work to capturing the living, breathing landscape of Karnataka.</p>.<p class="bodytext">While you’ll find hints of Van Gogh and Monet in his work, his canvases are deeply rooted in place, filled with lush gulmohur-lined avenues, quiet parks, and fleeting seasonal blooms, rendered with energetic brushstrokes and a striking refusal to overwork colour, often letting it blend directly on the canvas.</p>.<p class="bodytext">What makes this exhibition significant is not just its artistic merit, but its movement across regions, shared Shabala Kabe, who helps her brother, Sanjay Kabe, in the running of the Rumale Art House in Bengaluru. “The exhibition showcases the beauty of Bengaluru through the eyes of Rumale and how we have blooms almost throughout the year,” she said.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Rumale’s work, long associated with Bengaluru’s visual memory, now inhabits the historic galleries of Hyderabad, creating a dialogue between the southern cultural centres. His paintings, at once documentary and deeply personal, carry with them the textures of one city into another. In doing so, the exhibition transforms the museum into a meeting ground — one where Hyderabad encounters Bengaluru not through geography, but through colour, memory, and the enduring language of art.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The museum is keen on bringing in similar collaborations throughout the year, shared Joyoti Roy, Curator (Education) at the museum. “The focus will be on marking the milestone with intellectually engaging programmes, including lectures and collaborations that bring together historians, scholars, and cultural practitioners. We’re also planning to release a book on the museum,” she said, adding that the idea is to use the anniversary not just for celebration, but also to deepen public engagement with the museum’s legacy and collections.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Although the original Dewan Deodi no longer stands, the modern galleries of the Salar Jung Museum still carry its spirit. As you move through its halls, the objects, light, and quiet continuity of history gently recreate the feeling of stepping back into another time.</p>.<p class="bodytext"><span class="italic">Inaugurated on April 15, the works of Rumale will be on display at the museum till May 25.</span></p>
