The Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum was established in 1872 as the erstwhile Victoria & Albert Museum, Bombay. It is Mumbai’s oldest museum and the third oldest in the country.

A public-private partnership. In February 2003, an agreement was signed between the Municipal Corporation Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the Jamnalal Bajaj Foundation and the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) to restore and revitalise the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum.

About the collection: The Museum’s collection includes over 4000 manuscripts and reference books. There are several clay models, costumes, beautifully shaped silver and copper that are some of the most impressive collections. The Museum conserves photographs of ancient Bombay (Mumbai) and testimonials that belonged to the colonial past. The museum encompasses bronze sculptures, weapons, ivories, fossils, and decorative metal ware. The most attractive piece, that one cannot miss, is the elephant sculpture from ‘Elephanta Island’. Other artefacts include pottery, paintings, coins and the ancient relics.

The various galleries such as the Industrial Arts Gallery and Bombay School Paintings, the Origins of Mumbai Gallery, the Founders Gallery and the Kamal Nayan Bajaj Mumbai Gallery are great reminders of the city’s past. While the first houses a fine collection of 19th century paintings and pottery from the city along with other objets d’art, the second showcases Mumbai’s evolution from a group of seven islands in Roman times into a distinguished and charming city. Maps, watercolours, lithographs and photographs from the museum’s rare glass negative collection take visitors back to a time when the museum was built to showcase the importance of Bombay as Urbs Prima in Indis. The third shows the genesis and expansion of the city in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries through dioramas and models, that also depict the secular nature of this flourishing city.

A large part of the Museum’s collection showcases the importance of 19th century in the evolution of Mumbai into a major metropolis — the people, the different communities, the industries, professions, etc. Its significant collections include a 17th-century manuscript of Hatim Tai. Outside the museum is the installation of the monolithic basalt elephant sculpture recovered from the sea, which originated from Elephanta Island (Gharapuri Island).