Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/500

Fig. 12. Lahore. The Hall of Græco-Bactrian Sculpture. visitor's mind. The exhibit space includes about 28,000 square feet and the galleries are 45 feet high. As already noted, the museum is interesting in its art exhibits, especially in its Græco-Bactrian sculptures, for these, as is well known, played a most important part in the early art of northern India. This collection, occupying a special gallery 100 feet in length (Figs. 12 and 13), was brought together in the northwest provinces during the early seventies, and is unique. To lie mentioned also are the collections of carved wood, musical instruments, Hindu portraits, including a series of the Singh, Hindu drawings, many Afghan documents, and technical exhibits decidedly modern in museum technique, illustrating, for example, the arts of the Punjaub, glass making, lac turning, leather work. etc. In connection with these there are models of local industries cleverly carried out in terra-cotta by native artists. One may mention also a remarkable series of Madras curtains elaborately stamped with Fig. 13. Lahore. Detail in Hall of Sculpture. religious ceremonies and personages. The present administration of the art school and museum is in the hands of Mr. Percy Brown, artist and archeologist, well known for his studies on Græco-Bactrian art. The museum is now affiliated with the Asiatic Society of Bengal, with the Geological Survey of India and with the Forestry Commission. As an echo of Indian social conditions one hears that the museum has been opened one day a month for Hindu women, women attendants then taking charge of the galleries. The museum is popular, and the attendance averages over 1,000 a day.