Lahore Museum

The Lahore Museum (; ) is a museum located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. It is one of the oldest and most significant museums in the country, being founded in 1865. It was moved to its present building in 1894 on The Mall during the British colonial period. Lahore Museum is Pakistan's largest museum, as well as one of its most visited ones.

The museum, built in a Indo-Saracenic style, houses an extensive collection of Buddhist art from the ancient Indo-Greek and Gandhara kingdoms. It also has collections from the Indus Valley Civilisation, Mughal Empire, Sikh Empire and the British Raj.

History

Lahore Museum was originally established in 1865–66 on the site of the current Tollinton Market – a hall built for the 1864 Punjab Exhibition. The Tollinton Market building has since been handed over to the National College of Arts (NCA), which uses the space as an extended block for art exhibitions and cultural displays.Which later became the Tollinton Market after the completion of the new/present museum building, see "Murray's Handbook of the Punjab", pub. 1883. Mention also made in Peter Hopkirk, "Quest for Kim", London, 1996, pp.46–47 The present building was designed by Bhai Ram Singh and John Lockwood Kipling, while its construction was overseen by Ganga Ram.

It was constructed as a memorial of Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria held in 1887, and financed through a special public fund raised on the occasion. The foundation stone of the new museum was laid on 3 February 1890 by Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria's grandson. On its completion in 1894, the entire museum collection was transferred to present building with its new name as Jubilee Museum.

The Lahore Museum, with the Zamzama Gun placed directly in front of the building, is the setting of the opening scene in the novel Kim by Rudyard Kipling, whose father, John Lockwood Kipling, was one of the museum's earliest curators. John Lockwood Kipling was succeeded by K. N. Sitaram. The museum's collection was shifted in 1894 to its present location on The Mall, in Lahore's colonial-era core.

In 1948, in the aftermath of the partition of Punjab, the artefacts of the museum were divided between the newly formed countries of Pakistan and India, with the museum retaining about 60% of its collection. The rest was given to India and eventually housed at the Government Museum and Art Gallery in Chandigarh, built specifically for this purpose.

The museum's golden years are considered to be from 1970 to 1990, when scholar, archaeologist, and museologist Dr Saif-ur-Rehman Dar served as its director. He wrote several books about the museum, and his tenure was complemented by that of B.A. Qureshi, who was the chairman of the museum's board of governors back then.

Over 250,000 visitors were registered at the Lahore Museum in 2005. This dropped to 236,536 in 2016, 214,697 in 2017, but rose to 227,994 in 2018. It was the most popular museum of Pakistan among foreigners in 2016 (2,956 visits) and 2017 (2,941 visits). It dropped to second place (with 3,659 foreign visitors) in 2018, having been replaced by Taxila Museum.

Scope

The museum displays archaeological materials from Bronze Age (Indus Valley Civilisation) to the medieval-era Hindu Shahi and Mughal period. It has one of the largest collections of archaeology, history, arts, fine arts, applied arts, ethnology, and craft objects in Pakistan. It also has an extensive collection of Hellenistic and Mughal coins. There is also a photo gallery dedicated to the emergence of Pakistan as an independent state, the Pakistan Movement Gallery.

Collections The museum has a number of Greco-Buddhist sculptures as well as Mughal and Pahari paintings on display. Over 58,000 artifacts are reported to be part of its collection, with only 14,000 being on display. The collection contains important relics from the Indus Valley civilization, Gandhara, and Graeco-Bactrian periods as well. The Fasting Buddha from Gandhara, dating from the Gandhara period, is one of the museums most prized and celebrated objects.

The Evolution of Mankind The ceiling of the entrance hall features The Evolution of Mankind, a large mural consisting of 48 panels (each measuring 6 by 8 feet). It was painted by Pakistani artist Sadequain who originally completed it in 1973. Due to the weather conditions and termite attacks, the mural suffered significant damage over the years. A grant was approved by the Governor of Punjab in 2008 to start the restoration work. It was taken down in 2010, while restoration work began in 2012. By 2018, 16 of the panels had been restored by Uzma Usmani and Mumtaz Hussain.

The museum also contains fine specimens of Mughal and Sikh carved woodwork and has a large collection of paintings dating back to the British period. The collection also includes musical instruments, ancient jewelry, textiles, pottery, and armory, as well as some Tibetan and Nepalese work on display.

Directors The following is a list of the museum's directors and curators.

No. Name Role Tenure1Captain I.P WestmorlandCurator1873 – 18742A.R Becher EsquireCurator1874 – 18753John Lockwood KiplingCurator1875 – 1877, 1879 – 18904D. GabbickCurator1877 – 18795Fred. Henry AndrewsCurator1890 – 1893, 1893 – 18976Bhai Ram SinghCurator1897 – 1898, 1906 – 1909, 1908 – 19097Percy BrownCurator1898 – 1906, 1907 – 19088G.A WathenCurator1909 – 19129Hugh Lionel HeathCurator1912 – 1929, 1925 – 1926, 1927 – 192810K.N Sita RamCurator1928 – 194011Rai Bahadur S.N. GuptaCurator1920 – 1925, 1926 – 1927, 1940 – 194212K.B Molvi Zafar HasanCurator1942 – 194313Malik ShamsCurator1947 – 196514Syed Muhammad TaqiCurator / Director07-06-1965 to 22–05–197415Dr. Saifur Rehman DarDirector07-08-1974 to 15–08–1993, 01-08-1995 to 16–04–199816Dr. F.M. Anjum RehmaniOfficiating Director16-08-1993 to 31–07–1995, 17-04-1998 to 23–07–200117Mansoor SohailDirector (Additional Charge)23-07-2000 to 29–11–200118Dr. Liaquat Ali Khan NiaziDirector30-11-2001 to 16–04–200419Syed Gulzar MashhadiDirector23-04-2004 to 30–06–200520Naheed RizviDirector01-07-2005 to 29–08–200821Dr. Asghar Nadeem SyedDirector17-09-2008 to 13–05–200922Dr. Kamran Afzal CheemaDirector09-07-2009 to 12–08–200923Muhammad Siddique SheikhDirector12-08-2009 to 20–04–201024Salman IjazDirector21-04-2010 to 18–05–201025Humera AlamDirector19-05-2010 to 16–11–201226Sumaira SamadDirector21-11-2012 to 08–06–201627Syed Tahir Raza HamdaniDirector (Additional Charge)14-06-2016 to 23–07–201628Humayun Mazhar SheikhDirector25-07-2016 to 02–07–201829Saman RaiDirector (Additional Charge)07-11-2018 to 19–03–201930Nasir Jamal HotianaDirector20-03-2019 to 31–08–201931Tariq Mahmood JavaidDirector02-09-2019 to 23–09–202032Ijaz Ahmed MinhasDirector23-11-2020 to 07–10–202233Muhammad UsmanDirector17-11-2022 to 24–11–202334Sadaf ZafarDirector (Additional Charge)08-01-2024 to 15–01–202435Sadia TehreemDirector16-01-2024 to 01–05–202436Nabila IrfanDirector01-05-2024 to 14–10–202537Capt. (Retd.) Tahir Zafar AbbasiDirector24-10-2025 to 25–11–202538Taseer AhmadDirector26-11-2025 to date

Book The book Masterpieces of Lahore Museum, written by Anjum Rehmani, was published by the museum in 1999 with financial assistance from UNESCO. A new edition was published in 2006.

In popular culture The opening of Rudyard Kipling's novel, Kim (published in 1901), is set in the vicinity of the old/original Lahore Museum and the Mall areas.

Lahore Museum

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