The Victoria Memorial

Source: http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/18165/limit/recent
(downloaded Feb. 2008)

The Victoria Memorial: a closer view

Source: http://www.indiamike.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/3882/sort/2/cat/501
(downloaded Jan. 2005)

Indian Museum, Calcutta, 1878 (this building was first proposed in 1858)

Source: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~achatt1/Calcutta/indmus.html
(downloaded Oct. 1999)

"The Indian Museum is the offspring of the Asiatic Society of Bengal which was founded in 1784. The question of the storage and preservation of the various antique exhibits received from its members came up before the Society as early as 1796 but it was not until 1814 that the Society resolved to establish a Museum in its own premises. The Museum started with two sections viz. (a) Archaeological, ethnological and technical and (b) geological and zoological.

In 1835 the attention of the Government of India was directed towards the development of the mineral resources of the country, and about 1840 a Museum of Economic geology was opened in the Society's rooms. Upto 1856 this Museum of Economic geology continued to occupy the premises of the society. In that year, however, the portion of the collectionowned by the Government of India was removed to No. 1 Hastings Street, in connection with the Geological Survey of India there recently established. This removal set free space which was utilized for the display of the expanded Archaeological and Zoological collections.

With the progress of time, however, it became apparent that the further development of the Museum in the Society's rooms would be greatly hampered because of the limited space and funds at its disposal. In 1858 the members of the Society submitted a proposal to the Government of India for the foundation of an Imperial Museum in the metropolis to which the whole of the Society's collections except the library might be transferred. As a result it was arranged in 1865 that Zoological, Geological and Archaeological collections of the Asiatic Society should be transferred to the Board of Trustees for the proposed Indian Museum and that the Government should provide accomodation for the Society in the Museum building. The collections which has accumulated since 1814 in the Society's rooms, were then transferred to the Museum building in 1875. It soon became evident to the Society that it would not be advisable for them to occupy the Museum building or to leave its old premises. This impressive building facing the Maidan was built in 1878.

Meanwhile in 1872 the Bengal Economic Museum was established in Calcuttta in the Customs House godowns abutting on Dalhousie square. When this site was required by the East Indian Railway Company for their office in 1879, the collection was removed to 12, Hastings Street, which was unfortunately far too small, for the Museum to make any progress. For a time the exhibition was closed and it was reopened to the public in July 1882. The Committee of the Calcutta International Exhibition which was opened on the 4th of December, 1883, obtained frem the Government the large collection of the local Museum, and other exhibits from various sources. After the close of this exhibition in 1884, the economic specimens were housed in temporart sheds.

In 1882 the Govt. of Bengal undertook to errect the wing of the Indian Museum in Sudder Street and work of construction started in 1888 and was finished in 1891. The "Economic Court" gallery was opened to the public in May 1901.

The picture Gallery owes its origin to a hope expressed by the then Viceroy, Lord Northbrook in December, 1874, when opening a Fine Art Exhibition in Calcutta, that a permanent Art Gallery would eventually be established here. Sir Richard Temple, the then Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, took steps to accomplish this object. Accordingly in 1876 three buildings (at Baithak-khana in continuation of Bowbazar) immediately adjacent to the Government School of Art were secured which formed the nucleus of the Art Gallery for the housing of iits exhibits. The Gallery thus established in connection with the School of Art was opened on April 6, 1876, by Lord Northbrook."