Beauty of Salar Jung Museum | Hyderabad
The Salar Jung Museum is the third largest museum in India housing the biggest one-man collections of antiques in the world. It is one of the three National Museums of India. It has a collection of sculptures, paintings, carvings, textiles, manuscripts, ceramics, metallic artefacts, carpets, clocks, and furniture from Japan, China, Burma, Nepal, India, Persia, Egypt, Europe, and North America.
Click here to take a visual tour.
Veiled Rebecca
by G.B Benzoni,19th century.
The museum is a proud owner of one original marble sculptures titled “Veiled Rebecca” done in 1876 by sculptor G.B Benzoni of Milan. What makes this sculpture so extraordinary is, it features all the best qualities of the 19th century Neoclassical period. A perfectly proportionate beauty, a Jewish lady Rebecca stands in an alluring manner, enveloped in a transparent veil. Both the veil and the figure have been carved out of a single piece of marble. The folds, creases of the dress and the engaging curves of the figurine are finished with inimitable precision, lucidity and meticulousness. The sculpture was bought by Salar Jung I in 1876 during his visit to Rome. The statue has many admirers and visitors from all over the country come to see this masterpiece.
Salar Jung Museum’s Double Statue
On the second storey of the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad is a statue that will stop you dead in your tracks. Standing nonchalantly on a polished dark pedestal is the life-size figure of a man in a hooded cloak, wearing a defiant smile
Gaze at his reflection in the mirror behind him and the image of a demure women, eyes lowered, prayer book in hand, looks back at you.
Behind the visual trickery is a far deeper dichotomy — embodied in this arresting sculpture is a metaphor for the forces of evil and good.
