🖼️ Echoes in Oil and Stone: A Quiet Afternoon at the Sangli State Museum
A Slow, Personal Wander Through Painted Lives, Carved Figures, and Palace Whispers
By Architect Traveller Artist
Old palaces have a way of slowing you down before you even realise it. The light falls softer, the air holds the faint scent of aged wood and distant incense, and your footsteps sound almost apologetic against the stone. When I stepped into the Sangli State Museum—nestled inside the historic Rajwada palace in Sangli, Maharashtra—that familiar hush settled over me. My architect’s eye traced the graceful lines and filtered light; my artist’s heart paused at every brushstroke, every carved curve; and the traveller in me simply felt grateful to have found a place that asks nothing more than your quiet attention.
🏛️ Not a Museum, But a Kept Memory
This isn’t one of those vast, echoing institutions with endless rooms and spotlights. The Sangli State Museum is intimate, almost familial—like being invited into someone’s private collection of treasures. Housed within the old royal palace, it unfolds room by room with paintings, finely carved wood, porcelain, ivory pieces, and delicate curios. There’s no rush, no drama. Everything is arranged with care and restraint, as if the past is being protected rather than displayed. Walking through felt like being entrusted with fragments of lives that once mattered deeply here.
🎨 The Moment the Past Meets Your Eyes: James Wales’ Portraits
What truly held me were the portraits by James Wales, the Scottish painter who came to India in the late 18th century and chose to see people, not just subjects. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he didn’t exoticise—he captured presence.
I stood longest before the portrait of Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao (Madhavrao II). There’s nothing stiff or distant about it. The silk drapes seem to catch a real breath, the metal accents catch light gently, and the young Peshwa’s gaze—alert, thoughtful, alive—feels startlingly close. The composition draws you in: attendants nearby, layers of fabric and space, and a palette vibrant yet perfectly balanced. It’s history made human.
Just beside it, Nana Fadnavis regards you with that same quiet intensity. His eyes hold the weight of strategy, wisdom, and a deep appreciation for beauty. These aren’t mere records; they’re conversations that have waited centuries for someone to listen. In that small room, time folded, and for a heartbeat, I was simply there with them.
✒️ Sculpted Presence: Rao Bahadur Ganpatrao Mhatre’s Quiet Contribution
The museum’s treasures extend beyond canvas into three dimensions, and one piece that stopped me in my tracks was the statue of Queen Victoria by Rao Bahadur Ganpatrao Mhatre (1879–1947). A trailblazing sculptor from the Sir J.J. School of Art in Bombay, Mhatre earned his “Rao Bahadur” title from the British in recognition of his mastery—blending Western academic realism with an innate Indian grace. His most famous work, the flowing “Mandirpathagamini” (On the Way to the Temple), captured movement in stone like few others could, and he went on to create equestrian monuments and portraits for princely states across India.
Here in Sangli, his Queen Victoria stands with dignified poise—likely in the lobby or entrance area—merging colonial formality with subtle Indian figurative warmth. It feels like a thoughtful counterpoint to the Maratha portraits nearby: where Wales painted vibrant court life in oil, Mhatre carved imperial presence in stone. As an artist who navigated patronage and identity in a changing era, his work adds another layer to this collection—a reminder of how art in princely India absorbed, reflected, and sometimes quietly questioned the world around it. Standing before her, I felt the weight of overlapping histories: the palace that once hosted local royalty now holding echoes of empire in marble.
Beyond Mhatre, the collection deepens with paintings by A. N. Muller—portraits that blend Western precision with an Indian warmth—and M. V. Dhurandhar, whose subtle palettes and storytelling feel so refined and soulful. Among them sit objects that tell their own stories: Chinese ceramics, intricate ivory, fragrant sandalwood carvings—quiet proof that Sangli was never isolated but alive with trade, exchange, and cultural dialogue.
🌿 The Building as Silent Co-Artist
As an architect, I couldn’t ignore how the palace itself participates. The rooms’ proportions, the way light spills through old windows or jali, and the patina on the walls—they don’t just contain the art; they breathe with it. Standing before those Wales portraits and Mhatre’s sculpture, I studied the balance, the depth, and the way shadow, colour, and form carry emotion. It reminded me why these two loves—architecture and art—have always been intertwined for me: one gives form to space, the other gives it heart.
🧡 A Place That Lingers Long After You Leave
The Sangli State Museum doesn’t shout for your awe; it earns your affection slowly. Come expecting spectacle, and you might walk past its magic. Come ready to linger, to look closely, to let the quiet work on you—and you’ll carry a piece of it away.
If you’d like a calm glimpse before planning a visit (or just to feel the atmosphere again), this gentle introduction from Maharashtra Archaeology captures its essence beautifully:
Sangli Museum—An Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erxBJLXWAw0
In our fast-moving world, places like this are rare gifts. They remind me why I wander: to listen to the soft voices of history, to notice what endures on canvas, in stone, and in silence, and to feel connected across time.
Until the next quiet discovery,
Architect Traveller Artist 💛
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