Rabindra Bharati Museum (Jorasanko Thakur Bari)

The Rabindra Bharati Museum is housed in Jorasanko Thakur Bari, the ancestral mansion of the Tagore family at 6/4 Dwarkanath Tagore Lane in north Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The house was the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore in 1861 and the place where he died in 1941, and it was a centre of the Bengal Renaissance, hosting writers, painters, musicians and reformers. The mansion was built in the late 18th century and extended by Dwarkanath Tagore and Debendranath Tagore. It passed into the care of Rabindra Bharati University, founded in 1962, which has run the museum since 1961, the centenary of Tagore's birth. The building is a three-storeyed brick house around a courtyard, with verandahs, wooden shutters, columns and a thakur dalan where festivals were held. The museum displays Tagore family portraits, the poet's manuscripts, letters, musical instruments, paintings and furniture, and the room in which Tagore died is preserved. Paintings and drawings by Rabindranath, Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore are shown, along with photographs of Tagore's travels, Nobel Prize records and information about the Brahmo Samaj and the family's role in social reform. The Nobel medal was stolen from Visva-Bharati in 2004 and is not on display here. The display is partly chronological, following the family and Tagore's life, and partly thematic. Restoration work has been done to the roof and the facade by the university and state government. The nearby Marble Palace and Kumartuli potters' quarter can be combined with a visit.