Albert Hall Museum (Central Museum)

The Albert Hall Museum, also called the Central Museum, stands in Ram Niwas Garden outside the walls of the Old City of Jaipur in Rajasthan, India. It is the oldest museum in the state. Sawai Madho Singh II commissioned it as part of a famine-relief public works programme, the Prince of Wales laid the foundation stone in 1876, and the museum opened to the public in 1887, named after Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. The building was designed by Samuel Swinton Jacob in the Indo-Saracenic style, which blends Rajput, Mughal and Gothic revival features, with domes, chhatris, arched colonnades and a facade of pink and cream sandstone that glows when lit at night. Its collections run across the decorative and fine arts of Rajasthan. Galleries hold miniature paintings of the Jaipur, Kishangarh and Bundi schools, stone and metal sculpture, ivory carvings, brassware, woodwork, jewellery, textiles, weapons and woven carpets, including a well-known Persian garden carpet from Amer. A mummy from Egypt, acquired in the late 19th century and displayed with its coffin, is among the best-known exhibits, and a crystal gazing ball and a collection of musical instruments also attract attention. The museum follows a mostly thematic arrangement by craft and material, with several galleries having an older, case-by-case display style, and it works as a record of Rajasthani craftsmanship as well as of colonial-era museum practice. The building has required repeated repair for water damage and stone decay, with the Rajasthan government carrying out restoration and gallery upgrades over recent decades, including improved lighting and labelling. The evening session, when the facade is illuminated, is popular for photographs. The museum sits about 2 km south of the Hawa Mahal and City Palace, so visitors typically reach it by auto-rickshaw or taxi from the Old City.