A town hall that became a treasure house
The building was meant for speeches and receptions. A curator with a passion for crafts turned it into something better.
A royal visit: in February 1876 the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, came to Jaipur. The walled city had just been painted pink for him.
The foundation stone: on 6 February 1876 the stone of a new hall was laid in his honour and the hall was named after him.
A town hall at first: Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II had in mind a grand public building for a modernising state, set in the new garden he had laid out just outside the southern walls.
At a glance
- Built
- Foundation stone 1876, opened 1887
- Built by
- Sawai Ram Singh II, then Sawai Madho Singh II
- Open
- As Jaipur's public museum since 1887
- Allow
- An hour to ninety minutes inside
- Best time
- Late afternoon inside, after dark for the facade
- Photography
- Rules vary by gallery, follow the signs
- Getting there
- Ram Niwas Garden, just south of the walled city
- A change of plan: Ram Singh died in 1880 before the hall was finished. His successor, Sawai Madho Singh II, had a different idea.
- The man behind it: he was encouraged by the energetic Colonel Thomas Holbein Hendley, a surgeon in the state's service with a deep interest in Indian crafts.
- The Jaipur Exhibition: in 1883 Hendley organised a great exhibition of arts and industry. The objects he gathered for it, from all over India and beyond, became the core of a museum.
- A first for the region: in 1887 the Albert Hall opened its doors as Jaipur's public museum, the first in what is now Rajasthan.
- Still the state museum: today it is the state museum of Rajasthan, run by the government, and it was carefully renovated in the late 2000s.
- Everyone's museum: school groups, wedding parties, retired civil servants and visiting cousins from the villages all walk the same galleries.
Local tip
On a weekday morning you might share the pottery gallery with a single student sketching a vase. That is one of the quiet luxuries of Jaipur.
A museum made for craftsmen
Most museums of the age were built to impress visitors. Hendley built this one to help the people who made things.
Crafts in decline: by the 1880s, cheap machine-made goods from Europe were flooding Indian markets, and many hand crafts were in decline.
Hendley's answer: gather the finest work from India, Persia, Japan and Europe in one place, so Jaipur's own metalworkers, potters, enamellers and weavers could study it, borrow ideas and raise their standards.
Facts to know
- The problem
- Cheap European machine goods, 1880s
- The idea
- Show craftsmen the world's finest work
- Models from
- India, Persia, Japan and Europe
- Ladies' days
- One day a week for women only
- Objects as teachers: many pieces in the galleries were chosen precisely for that reason. They were models and teachers as much as treasures.
- Guided tours, early: Hendley also pioneered guided tours, with guides and demonstrators showing visitors around.
- Ladies' days: in an age of purdah, one day a week was set aside for women visitors only, so the women of Jaipur's families could see the collection in privacy.
- A family memory: our grandmother's generation still remembered those ladies' days, and the hum of conversation in the galleries when they came.
- Why craft lovers should come: see the blue pottery here, then visit a workshop. See the brass and enamel, then walk through the old city's metal bazaars.
- Take the story further: our pages on blue pottery, block printing and crafts and the textile and craft trail carry it out into the city.
The building, explained
Albert Hall is the most perfect example in Jaipur of a style invented in the nineteenth century to marry India and Britain.
The architect: Samuel Swinton Jacob, a young engineer who led the Public Works Department of Jaipur State, assisted by Mir Tujumool Hoosein.
A style with a purpose: Jacob was one of the great figures of the Indo-Saracenic style. Victorian architects in India wanted to draw on Indian traditions rather than copy Gothic or classical Europe.
A careful student: Jacob studied the buildings of Rajasthan and the Mughals closely, and even published a portfolio of their details so other builders could use them.
The building in brief
- Style
- Indo-Saracenic
- Architect
- Samuel Swinton Jacob
- Assisted by
- Mir Tujumool Hoosein
- Materials
- Local pale sandstone and marble
- Look for
- Chhatris, cusped arches, painted murals
- European plan: the galleries arranged around courtyards and the sense of a grand public building come from Europe.
- Indian details: domed pavilions called chhatris on the roof, overhanging eaves, cusped arches, latticed screens, carved brackets and balconies borrowed from Rajput palaces.
- Local stone: pale sandstone and marble. The overall effect is of a palace that happens to be a museum.
- Learn the vocabulary: our guide to Rajasthani architecture explains each of these elements.
- Look up inside: corridors and galleries carry painted murals, among them scenes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
- Where the murals come from: they were copied from a sixteenth-century illustrated Persian translation of the epics made at the Mughal court.
- The finest object: a courtyard fountain cools the centre. The building is part of the collection, and in some ways the finest object in it.
- Jacob's other work: he stayed in Rajasthan for decades and designed the Lalgarh Palace for the Maharaja of Bikaner, in red sandstone, with Rajput detail on a modern plan.
- A cousin in the City Palace: his influence runs through the Mubarak Mahal, built by his colleague Lala Chiman Lal.
- Follow the family resemblance: our Bikaner guide covers Lalgarh, and our City Palace guide explains the Mubarak Mahal.
The galleries worth your time
There are many rooms and thousands of objects. These are the galleries we always walk guests through, in roughly this order.
Gallery highlights
- Start with
- The pottery gallery
- Star object
- Persian garden carpet, dated 1632
- For children
- Arms and armour, then the mummy
- Quietest rooms
- Coins and sculpture
The pottery gallery
Why start here: the largest and most varied gallery, and one of the best collections of Indian and world pottery anywhere in the country.
- What to look for: Jaipur blue pottery, glazed tiles, the unglazed water pots of Rajasthan's villages, and pieces from Persia, China and Japan that Hendley gathered as models.
- Ask your guide: to show you how the Jaipur pieces borrow from the Persian ones.
Metalwork and brass
What's here: brass, copper and silver vessels, trays, lamps and enamelled pieces from across India.
- Meenakari: Jaipur's art of fusing bright enamel onto gold and silver has its roots in this city's royal workshops.
- Where pieces came from: some were replicas of exhibits Jaipur sent to London, and others were bought at an exhibition in Lahore in the 1890s.
Arms and armour
What's here: swords, daggers, shields, chain mail and helmets, many beautifully decorated.
- How it compares: a smaller collection than the one in the City Palace, but well displayed.
- With children: this is the room they usually ask to come back to.
Jewellery and costume
- What's here: traditional jewellery of Rajasthan's communities, from heavy silver anklets to fine gold pieces, with textiles and dress.
- Before the bazaars: a good introduction before you shop, and our guide to Rajasthani jewellery goes further.
Carpets and the Persian garden carpet
The treasure: a Persian garden carpet acquired for the Kachwaha court in the time of Mirza Raja Jai Singh I and dated to 1632.
- The pattern: a garden seen from above, divided by water channels into beds of trees and flowers, with fish and birds in the streams.
- Take your time: it is one of the finest surviving carpets of its kind, worth standing in front of for a long time.
Miniature paintings
What's here: miniatures from the courts of Rajasthan and the Mughals, with hunting scenes, kings in profile, lovers on terraces and gods in gardens.
- The Jaipur school: the city had its own school of court painting, fond of bright colour and large, confident figures. Some old-city families still paint in the tradition.
- Look closely: at the borders and the tiny faces, painted with brushes of a few squirrel hairs.
- Meet a painter: if it catches you, spend a morning with one. Our page on miniature painting explains how.
Musical instruments, ivory and woodwork
- What's here: musical instruments, carved ivory and inlaid woodwork, many from Rajasthan's own workshops.
- Still played: look for the stringed instruments of the desert's folk musicians, still played at weddings today.
Coins and sculpture
Two thousand years of coins: from the Kushan and Gupta empires through the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals to British India.
- Temple sculpture: stone images from temples of the region.
- Room to yourself: both are quieter rooms where you can usually be alone.
The Egyptian lady of our childhood
Every child in Jaipur has visited her at least once. Most of us were a little frightened, and all of us went back.
The star resident: an Egyptian mummy, a woman often called Tutu, from the Ptolemaic period, around two thousand three hundred years ago.
Her home town: she is said to have come from a family of priests at Panopolis in Upper Egypt, the city the Greeks named after their god Pan.
Facts to know
- Who
- A woman often called Tutu
- Period
- Ptolemaic, about 2,300 years ago
- From
- A priestly family of Panopolis, Upper Egypt
- Arrived
- From Cairo, in the 1880s
- How she got here: she arrived in Jaipur from Cairo in the 1880s, around the time of the Jaipur Exhibition, and has been the museum's star ever since.
- What you'll see: she lies in a case with her painted coffin and objects explaining the burial customs of ancient Egypt.
- Moving, not spooky: older guests often find her a reminder of how far objects travelled in the age of empire, and how strange it is to meet a woman from the Nile in a Rajput city.
- Every child's visit: most of us were a little frightened, and all of us went back.
- More for families: our page on travelling with children has ideas for keeping young visitors happy in Jaipur.
Local tip
If you are travelling with children, save the mummy for last. It gives everyone something to look forward to.
Albert Hall after dark
By day it is a museum. At night it becomes the most beautiful building in modern Jaipur.
Stone turns gold: as the light fades the building is floodlit, and the pale stone glows against the darkening sky.
The pigeons settle: the birds that crowd the forecourt by day settle into the arches.
Facts to know
- When
- From dusk, once the floodlights come on
- Best view
- The end of the approach road
- Next door
- Masala Chowk street-food court
- Order
- Pani puri, dal kachori, chilla, kulfi
- The city comes out: families walk in the garden, students sit on the steps, and the roundabout in front fills with evening traffic.
- The best night view: stand at the end of the approach road to see the whole building lit, its domes and pavilions sharp against the dusk. It is one of the finest night views in the city.
- Masala Chowk: next door, an open-air food court brings together some of the walled city's best-known street-food stalls in one clean courtyard.
- Our evening ritual: see the lit facade, then walk across for pani puri, dal kachori, chilla and kulfi.
- What to order: our food of Jaipur guide has the dishes, and our page on bazaars after dark has more ideas for the evening.
The Ram Niwas Garden
The museum stands in a garden that Jaipur has used as its front lawn for a century and a half.
A public garden: Sawai Ram Singh II laid it out in the 1860s, just outside the southern wall, as part of his plan for a modern capital.
Rare for its time: it was open to the public in an age when most of India's gardens belonged to kings and nobles.
Facts to know
- Laid out
- 1860s, by Sawai Ram Singh II
- Where
- Just outside the southern wall
- Best hour
- First light, before the museum opens
- Nearby gates
- New Gate and Sanganeri Gate
- The hall came later: the great building rose in its centre a few years after the garden.
- Mornings: walkers, laughter clubs, yoga groups and old men with newspapers on the benches.
- Weekends: children play cricket on the lawns, and in winter families picnic in the sun.
- Where old meets new: behind you, the old city walls with New Gate and Sanganeri Gate. In front, the broad roads, colleges and civic buildings of twentieth-century Jaipur.
- Read the city: standing here you can see how Jaipur grew out of Jai Singh's grid.
Local tip
If you are staying at Rambagh or nearby, walk through the garden at first light, before the museum opens. It shows you a side of Jaipur most visitors never meet.
The best hour, and the best season
Albert Hall is a rare Jaipur sight that is good at any hour. The trick is to come twice.
Late afternoon inside: the morning crowds and school groups have usually left, and the galleries are cool.
The perfect sequence: an hour inside, out to the garden for sunset as the light softens, then the floodlighting and dinner at Masala Chowk.
Facts to know
- Galleries
- Late afternoon, after the school groups
- Facade
- After dark, floodlit
- Best season
- October to March
- Summer
- Cool galleries at midday, evening outside
- Monsoon
- Green garden, stone glowing after rain
- Why it works: that sequence turns a museum visit into one of the best evenings in Jaipur.
- Or split it: give the museum a morning on its own and come back for the facade after dinner.
- October to March: the most comfortable season, with warm days and cool nights for the garden and the street food.
- In summer: the galleries are a good refuge from the midday heat, and the evening outside is pleasant once the sun has gone.
- In the monsoon: the garden is green and the stone glows after rain.
How to visit
Albert Hall is easy, central and calm. These small points help.
Time: allow an hour to ninety minutes for the galleries, longer if you love pottery, carpets or coins.
Take a guide: a good one adds a great deal. Ask them to focus on a few galleries rather than trying to see everything.
Before you go
- Allow
- An hour to ninety minutes, more for enthusiasts
- Guide
- Worth it, focus on a few galleries
- Photography
- Varies by gallery, follow the signs
- Access
- Main floors reasonable, some steps
- Photography: rules vary between galleries and change from time to time. Follow the signs and the staff.
- Access: the main floors are reasonably accessible, but there are steps at the entrance and between some galleries. Ask us about current access, and see our accessible travel guide.
- Mind the pigeons: the birds and the people feeding them in the forecourt make a lovely sight and a messy one.
- Crossing the road: the roundabout in front is busy. Cross with your guide or chauffeur and let them drop you at the garden entrance.
- Street food safely: Masala Chowk is the safest and pleasantest place to try it. Choose stalls that cook to order, and our health and safety advice covers the rest.
What most visitors miss
Most visitors see the mummy, photograph the facade and go. These are the things we stop for.
The murals in the corridors
- Where: look up and along the walls.
- Why stop: the painted scenes from the epics, copied from a Mughal manuscript, are as fine as many of the objects in the cases.
The roofline from the garden
- How: walk away from the building into the garden and turn round.
- Why stop: only from a distance can you see the full play of domes and pavilions that Jacob designed.
The Persian carpet up close
- How: spend real time with the garden carpet.
- Why stop: find the fish in the streams and the birds in the trees. It is a garden you can walk through with your eyes.
The view to the old city
- Where: from the front steps, look north towards the old city walls.
- Why stop: the museum was built at the edge of Jai Singh's grid, and this is one of the best places to see where old and new Jaipur meet.
An evening built around Albert Hall
This is the evening we plan for guests who want to see modern Jaipur at its most relaxed. It asks for nothing more than comfortable shoes and an appetite.
The evening at a glance
- Arrive
- About ninety minutes before sunset
- Sunset
- In the Ram Niwas Garden
- Dinner
- Masala Chowk, or your palace hotel
- Bring
- Comfortable shoes and an appetite
Late afternoon in the galleries
When: arrive about ninety minutes before sunset.
- What to see: the pottery gallery, the carpets and the metalwork with your guide, ending with the mummy.
- Why then: by the time you come out, the school groups have gone and the garden is filling with families.
Sunset in the garden
Watch the change: walk out into the Ram Niwas Garden and turn back to watch the building as the sky changes colour.
- Stay for the lights: wait until the floodlights come on and the stone turns gold. This is the moment for photographs.
- The angle we like: from the end of the approach, one of the best photo spots in Jaipur.
Dinner at Masala Chowk, or something grander
Street-food supper: cross to Masala Chowk, choose a few dishes from different stalls and finish with kulfi.
- If you prefer a tablecloth: your chauffeur can have you at your palace hotel in a few minutes.
- On a special night: we can arrange a private dinner instead. Our page on a private dinner in a palace explains how.
Sights to pair with Albert Hall
The museum stands just outside the walled city, so the old bazaars, palace hotels and street food are all within easy reach.
Bapu Bazaar and Nehru Bazaar
Where: just inside the walls near Sanganeri Gate.
- What to buy: block-printed cotton, mojari slippers and light Jaipuri quilts.
- When: walk there from the museum in the late afternoon.
Hawa Mahal and the City Palace
- Where: the heart of the walled city, a short drive north.
- A complete day: Hawa Mahal at sunrise, the City Palace in the morning, then Albert Hall in the evening.
MI Road
- What it is: the broad road outside the western walls, with some of Jaipur's oldest restaurants and the famous lassi shop.
- When: a short drive from the museum, and a good stop for a cold drink on a warm afternoon.
Jaipur's crafts in person
- See them made: after the pottery and metalwork galleries, watch the crafts being made.
- Where: a morning with a block-printing family in Bagru, or a visit to a blue pottery workshop, brings the collection to life.
Where to stay close by
Albert Hall lies between the walled city and the southern districts where Jaipur's grandest hotels stand.
Rambagh Palace
- Where: the former royal residence is a short drive south of the museum.
- Why stay: after an evening at Albert Hall and Masala Chowk, return to its lawns for a nightcap on the verandah.
Jai Mahal Palace
- What it is: an eighteenth-century palace in Mughal-style gardens, a short drive west.
- Why stay: calm and green, and convenient for both the museum and the old city.
Samode Haveli
- What it is: a nobleman's haveli inside the walls, with the museum a short drive south.
- Why stay: if you would rather sleep in the old city. Our guide to luxury hotels in Jaipur compares all the options.
Who will love Albert Hall, and who won't
Not every traveller wants a museum in Jaipur. Here is our honest advice.
Craft lovers, collectors and designers: give it a full morning. The pottery, metalwork and carpets make every later workshop or bazaar visit more rewarding.
Architecture lovers: will enjoy the building as much as the collection, especially if they plan to see Swinton Jacob's other work in Rajasthan.
- Families with children: do well here, as long as the visit is short and ends with the mummy and an ice cream.
- Not a museum person? Skip the galleries and come only for the lit facade and the street food after dark. That alone is worth an evening.
- Only one day in Jaipur? The palaces and forts come first. Albert Hall is the perfect second or third day.
