2018-06-12 Tue

“Civilisations aren't remembered by their business people, Bankers or lawyers. They're remembered by their art.” – Eli Broad.

And what’s the best place to observe these arts than at the museums! Museums are repositories of artistic, cultural, tangible and intangible heritage of a country. India being a country of much celebrated history and past, has innumerable artefacts of beauty and importance.

To explore and honour this diversity of artefacts, India Post has issued four commemorative stamps. These stamps depict the treasured art objects exhibited in the museums from across the country. Let’s see the last stamp in this series:

Dragger and Knife: The Rs. 2 stamp shows two jewelled arms that are now exhibited in the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad. These beautiful objects are believed to belong to the Mughal Emperor Jehangir and his wife Nur Jahan. Though a lack of inscription on either the object makes it difficult to prove the ownership, the arrangement of precious stones and the exquisite workmanship point to a typically Mughal workmanship of the 17th century.

The handles of both the dagger and the knife are made of white jade encrusted with flowers of ruby and leaves of emerald. The pendant attached to the dagger is shaped like a flower in white jade and encrusted with floral motif carved out of rubies and emeralds.

The Salar Jung Museum is the third largest museum of India, housing around 1.1 million objects of national importance in their collection!

To read about the other stamps in this series click here.

Image Courtesy: Mintage World