Treasure island

As Kolkata’s Victoria Memorial museum turns 100, take a tour of hidden gems, from art and poetry to the golden dagger of Tipu Sultan

In January 1901, Queen Victoria died and Lord Curzon, then viceroy of India, decided to build a grand marble monument in her memory, in the then colonial capital of Calcutta. The Victoria Memorial Hall, opened in 1921, turns 100 this year. It now houses 34,000 paintings, manuscripts and antiques from across four centuries. In this collection are nearly 500 oil paintings from the 1700s and 1800s, documenting the life and topography of India in a time before the camera. “These are vital visual tools for any scholar or researcher,” says Jayanta Sengupta, secretary and curator of Victoria Memorial Hall. “There are also 5,000 water colours from the Bengal School, by a range of artists including Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore, who introduced modernism into Indian art.” Take a tour of the collection through Sengupta’s pick of 10 artefacts.

Soldiers, both Indian and British, board a train to Peshawar, on their way to Afghanistan, where the Second Anglo-afghan War was underway. Notice how the textures of the saddlepacks, horses’ manes and uniforms vary. And if it’s the looming steam engine that catches your eye first, that’s no accident. The railways were vital to British interests in the region.

The then ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan (17501799), owned this ornamental weapon, with a handle studded with precious stones — mainly rubies and pearls.

Part of the famous Arabian Nights series, this painting is an exquisite example of the artist’s adaptation of the Mughal miniature technique. Notice how different the bottom half of this painting looks from the top, with its depiction of a dark kitchen manned by the working-class. “These are the characters that Tagore transports into the painting from the Chitpur area in Kolkata, where he lived,” Sengupta says.

Preserved at the Victoria Memorial are quite a few of the poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s handwritten verses, and some letters. This is Geetāshtak, (Eight Songs), written during a trip to Germany. There’s the original Amar Mukti Ganer Sure Ei Akashe (My Liberation Is in the Tunes of Songs, Within this Sky) which Tagore later changed to Amar Mukti Aloy Aloy Ei Akashe (My Liberation is Among the Light, Within this Sky).

The Victoria Memorial has a historic collection of early photographs. This silver albumen print is remarkably clear for its time, and also unusual is its subject matter. Photographs were expensive, both to take and to print, so most pictures were of grand monuments or events. This one captures the energy and vibrancy of a crowd in the midst of enjoying the city’s most beloved festival. “If you look carefully, you can also see boats and steamers in the busy Ganga,” says Sengupta.

Statues of notable Britons were designed to impress, nay intimidate, in the colonies. This 8-ft statue of the Governor General of Bengal was created in the neoclassical style and shows the portly Cornwallis in a Roman toga, his left hand grasping a sheathed sword, his right extending an olive branch. The female figures seated below him represent fortitude and prudence. The symbolism is interesting, says Sengupta, because “the British thought of themselves as having inherited the mantle of global empire from the Romans.”

Nal Daman is the Persian translation of the Indian myth Nala Damayanti, told within the Mahabharata. This manuscript is a representation of how interested Muslim rulers in medieval and early modern India were in Hindu epics and legends. “Everyone is interested in a good story, regardless of religion,” Sengupta says. This work was commissioned by the Mughal emperor Akbar, who had a whole department of translation

This piece of weaponry was found during excavation of the Murshidabad branch of the Eastern Bengal State Railway, circa 1880. The battle of Plassey was a turning point for the British in India. East India Company forces defeated the wealthy and powerful Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula. “The conquest of Bengal, a rich territory, paved way for British to acquire the rest of India,” Sengupta says.

A simple wooden desk preserved at the museum is perhaps where the famous writer wrote his novel Anandamath in 1882. It is in that work that the poem Vande Mataram first appeared. It would later be picked up by the Congress party and sung across the country as part of the freedom movement. It continues to be sung today and is the national song.

This is a grand piano originally ordered for the 10-year-old Victoria by her uncle, King William IV, in 1829. “It hasn’t been tuned for a long time, but its keys are still intact and it can be played,” Sengupta says. Incidentally, William IV died with no living legitimate heirs, leaving Victoria to be crowned queen upon his death, in 1837. She was 18.