Private Museums, Public Concern

Many years later, while on a trip to Bombay, I visited yet another museum, the Kailashpati Singhania museum with a collection of crystal fur...

AS a young girl I remember visiting Kamla Retreat in Kanpur and delighting in its palatial spaces with imposing bronze and marble statues, large paintings, an incredible clock collection, all brought alive with whimsy. The gardens were pure fantasy with pagodas, temples and a swimming pool which churned and heaved and created waves that splashed on us while we squealed with delight and fear.

Many years later, while on a trip to Bombay, I visited yet another museum, the Kailashpati Singhania museum with a collection of crystal furniture and jade art objects and heard about his collection of Tibetan art in Calcutta. At a time when art collections and a museum culture were just developing in India, Singhania had already moved ahead with the idea of private art collections housed in a specific environment. There are, of course, more professional examples; the Sarabais with the invaluable Calico Museum being an important one where a private collection and a museum environment come together. The fact that the Calico Museum is almost indispensable to research scholars and art lovers demonstrates the social function that private collections can play in enriching the cultural fabric of a country. All private collections are unique, reflecting the love and passion of a collector for particular art objects.

Valuable private collections are often fragmented at the death of the collector, being divided between the heirs. It can be rudely scattered, benefiting all the wrong people as it happened after the death of Svetoslav Roerich and Devika Rani. Whatever remains of their treasures is under dispute while the Tataguni estate slumbers like Sleeping Beauty8217;s castle. The inheritor can also sell a collection, as it is worth a fortune. Medioma Tanksalwalla8217;s 200-year-old collection is being auctioned by his son in Kolkata.

There are several collectors who, nearing the end of their lives, dread to think of the dispersal of what they have lovingly put together. Moreover, the integrity of a collection is destroyed by the sale of even a part of the whole. There are no provisions to protect private collections and neither has the government considered, in monetary and cultural terms, how valuable they can be.

In America, the state benefits from priceless collections such as the Getty, Guggenheim, Frick, Fogg or Freer collections. These collections are known the world over and visited by scholars and tourists alike. The US Government recognises their importance and has acted decisively to prevent their dissipation. Private collectors are offered many incentives like exemption from certain taxes and crippling death duties. At times a plot of land or a building can be offered in order to make a museum. What a pity then that our own collectors with their priceless treasures have nowhere to turn to. Most of them are old and need all the help that can be given to them. Is the idea of a museum of private collections so impossible? But first the government has to recognise how necessary such a concept can be or else the wind will blow them away when the owners die.