Marble Palace

The Marble Palace is a mansion at 46 Muktaram Babu Street in North Kolkata, West Bengal, India, built in 1835 by a wealthy Bengali merchant family and still privately held by its descendants. It is one of the best-preserved examples of a nineteenth-century Kolkata rajbari, or aristocratic house, and its name comes from the marble used for floors, columns and statuary throughout the building.

Visitors approach through a gate into a courtyard surrounded by a colonnaded, Neoclassical-style facade. Inside, the rooms and corridors are crowded with European sculpture, Italian and Belgian glass, ornate chandeliers, grandfather clocks, Venetian mirrors, porcelain and heavy period furniture. Paintings line the walls, and the collection is often described as including works attributed to European masters as well as Indian artists. A large garden and courtyard hold more statues, and the property has a small private shrine and an aviary-style garden area where birds are kept.

Visits are by guided tour and require a free entry pass, which has traditionally been issued by the West Bengal tourism office in Kolkata. The palace opens from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, and it is closed on Mondays and Thursdays. A visit takes about one hour. Because the pass system limits numbers, the interior is rarely crowded, but groups are taken through together and moving at the guide's pace is expected. Morning slots are the easiest to secure when the pass is arranged in advance.

The palace is in an old, dense part of the city, so the best way to reach it is by Metro to Girish Park and then a short taxi or rickshaw ride. Nearby attractions include the Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the Kumartuli potters' quarter and Mullick Ghat flower market, which make a good half-day circuit of North Kolkata. Photography is restricted inside the house, and visitors should expect to follow the rules set by the family and guides.