Annual report - Ministry Of Culture

36 MINISTRY OF CULTURE
Victoria Memorial as a museum is the repository of nearly thirty
thousand artifacts, which encapsulates the history of our nation
extending for over three centuries beginning from 1650 A.D. The
collection includes visuals in oil and water colours, sketches and
drawings, aquatints, lithographs, stamps and postal stationary,
coins and medals, arms and armour, books and manuscripts,
sculptures, costumes, personal relics and archival documents.
Victoria Memorial has a unique collection of paintings of
European artists of the 18 th – 19 th century such as Johann
Zoffany, Reynolds, William Hodges, George Chinnery, Robert
Holmes, Thomas Hickey, Tilly Kettle, Baltazar Solvyns, Charles
D’oyly, Emily Eden, and Samuel Davis. It is repository of the
largest number of Daniells’ paintings in the world. In the
collection of the Memorial is the third largest painting on a
single canvas – Vassili Verestchagin’s “The state procession of
the Prince of Wales into Jaipur in 1876”.
The other interesting artifacts of the Memorial include illustrated
Persian manuscripts, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s hand
written Quran, the Persian translation of the Nala Damayanti by
Abul Faiz Faizi, Dara Shikoh’s translation of the Upanishads,
Kalighat Paintings, and Qajar paintings. The collection is further
enriched with the acquisition of Bengal School Paintings – notably
the artwork of Abanindranath, Atul Bose, and Jamini Roy.
Activities
The important activities of the Memorial during the year under
review were as follows:
Physical verification and digitization of artifacts
Victoria Memorial Hall
• Physical verification of 350 stamps, 282 Engravings (from
7 Albums), 65 Books was done during the period.
• Physical verification of the artifacts on display was
completed.
• For preparation of the multimedia kiosks, information on
Arms and Armor, artifacts relating to the Queen in the
collection of VMH, National Leaders Gallery was compiled
and forwarded to NCSM.
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