Jaganmohan Palace Art Museum and Auditorium is located in Mysore district of Karnataka state. It was started in 1856 and completed in 1861. Jaganmohan Palace is one of the oldest modern structures in Mysore.
The Jaganmohan Palace Art Museum, commonly known as Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, is an art museum used by the former royal family and formerly the alternate royal residence of the ruling Maharaja of Mysore, the art gallery has one of the largest collections of artworks in South India.
Jaganmohan Palace Art Museum is about 141 km from Bangalore and just 02 km from Mysore. It is just 01 km from Mysore railway station.
The Jaganmohan Palace Art Museum and Auditorium is open from 08:30 AM to 5:30 PM.
History
The royal family lived in this Jaganmohan Palace while the renovation and construction work was going on in the Mysore Palace. In 1896, during the wedding of Princess Jayalakshmi Devi, elder sister of the reigning Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV, the old palace caught fire and was seriously damaged. This palace was last inhabited by the royal family.
Construction of the new palace began in 1897 and lasted until 1912. During this interval, the Jaganmohan Palace once again became the primary residence of the Maharaja of Mysore and his family.
In 1915, Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV converted the palace into an art gallery. In 1950, Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar placed the palace under a trust and opened it for public viewing. When the Kingdom of Mysore was annexed to the Republic of India in 1955, the art gallery was expanded with many precious articles and gifts from the Maharaja. In 1980 Srikanthadutta Wodeyar renamed the palace as Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery in honor of his father.
The palace is built in traditional Hindu style and has three floors. An image displayed in the palace is an early Mysore Dasara image and is painted using vegetable colours. A family tree of the lords tracing the lineage of the royal family is painted on the wall of the palace. There are two wooden sculptures in the palace depicting Dasavatara, the ten avatars of Vishnu.
Most of these works of art are paintings, the most prominent of which is by Raja Ravi Varma, some depicting scenes from the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. The collection of paintings in the gallery is more than 2000 and sixteen paintings of Raja Ravivarman were donated to the gallery by Maharaja Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar. Another important painting here is the Lady with a Lamp in a Dark Room alone exhibit. Giving the illusion that the beam of the lamp is illuminating the woman’s face. The only visual representation is a collection of paintings by Colonel Scott of the British Army Office during the Anglo-Mysore Wars. Images made on grains of rice, which can only be seen through a magnifying glass, are also displayed here.
Jaganmohan Palace is only about 200 meters away from Mysore Palace. Jaganmohan’s palace was used for ceremonial purposes. Its objectives are royal events (such as music, dance and poetry and cultural events) presided over by the Maharaja.
