Victoria Memorial Information &Main Attractions

 

Victoria Memorial, Kolkata 

Established	1921; 99 years ago
Location	Queen's Way, Kolkata, West Bengal, India

The Victoria Memorial is a large marble building in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, which was built between 1906 and 1921. It is dedicated to the memory of Queen Victoria, then Empress of India, and is now a museum and tourist destination under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture. The memorial lies on the Maidan (grounds) by the bank of the Hooghly River, near Jawaharlal Nehru Road (better known as Chowringhee Road).

Queen Victoria's statue inside the memorial

The Victoria Memorial has 25 galleries. These include the royal gallery, the national leaders gallery, the portrait gallery, central hall, the sculpture gallery, the arms and armoury gallery and the newer, Calcutta gallery.

The gallery inside the memorial

Royal Gallery 

The Royal Gallery displays a number of portraits of Victoria and Prince Albert, and paintings illustrating their lives, by Jansen and Winterhalter. The oil paintings are copies of those in London. They include: Victoria receiving the sacrament at her coronation in Westminster Abbey (June 1838); Victoria's marriage to Albert in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace (1840); the christening of the Prince of Wales in Windsor Castle (1842); the marriage of Edward VII to Princess Alexandra (1863); Victoria at the First Jubilee service at Westminster Abbey (1887) and the Second Jubilee service at St. Paul's Cathedral (June 1897).

Calcutta gallery

The CALCUTTA GALLERY, India's first city gallery, was visualised by Lord Curzon, at the turn of the century. The matter was taken up in mid- 1970s by Prof. S. Nurul Hasan, then Education Minister, Government of India.

In 1986, Prof. Nurul Hasan became the Governor of West Bengal and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Memorial. He took the initiative to see the Victoria Memorial emerge as the focal point of academic and tourist interest in Calcutta.

In November1988, Prof. Hasan invited specialists to a brain storming international seminar on Historical Perspectives for the Calcutta tercentenary. Everyone welcomed the idea of a permanent Calcutta Gallery at the Victoria Memorial. 

The Calcutta Gallery displays the history and development of Calcutta from Job Charnok and the British rule upto 1911,when the capital was shifted to Delhi.

The gallery also has a life size diorama of the view of the Chitpur road in the late 19th century. Chitpur was the main business centre in those days, presently known as the Burabazar area.

Gardens 

The gardens at the Victoria memorial are covered of 64 acres (260,000 m²). They are maintained by a team of 21 gardeners. They were designed by Redesdale and David Prain . On Esch's bridge, between narrative panels by Goscombe John, there is a bronze statue of Victoria, by George Frampton . Victoria is seated on her throne, wearing the robes of the Star of India . In the paved quadrangles and elsewhere around the building, other statues commemorate Hastings, Charles Cornwallis (1st Marquess Cornwallis), Robert Clive, Arthur Wellesley and James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie. 

King Edward VII Arch in the Victoria Memorial Gardens