Jaipur: Albert Hall Museum Guided Walking Tour

Rajasthan's oldest museum, properly explained

Two hours, one building, and a guide who can tell you what you are looking at. The Albert Hall rewards that far more than it rewards wandering, because its collection is arranged by material and craft rather than by any story you would guess.

The building

Opened to the public in 1887, designed by Sir Samuel Swinton Jacob, and the best example of Indo-Saracenic architecture in the city — Rajput chhatris and jali screens grafted onto a European museum plan, in the pale stone of the Jaipur hills.

It stands in Ram Niwas Garden, and at night it is floodlit and surrounded by pigeons in numbers that have to be seen.

Inside

The Egyptian mummy is what most visitors come for — a woman named Tutu, from a priestly family of Panopolis, roughly 2,300 years old, presented to the museum in 1887. She is in the Egypt and Foreign Art gallery, and there is a good display on how she was examined.

Beyond that, the real strength is Rajasthani craft: blue pottery from Jaipur's own kilns, arms and armour, miniature painting of the Jaipur and Kishangarh schools, ivory, metalware, and a carpet gallery whose centrepiece is a 17th-century Persian garden carpet brought back from Lahore.

There is also a full set of clay models made in the 1880s showing yoga postures, which is one of the oldest such records anywhere.

Practical

Around two hours on your feet, entirely indoors, which makes it a genuinely good choice in the middle of a hot day or during the monsoon.

Entry is paid at the gate — a small fee, more for foreign nationals, with a separate combined ticket if you plan to see other Jaipur monuments the same day. There is a composite pass worth asking your guide about.

Photography is allowed in most galleries. The museum is closed on public holidays; check before a Monday.