The National Museum has housed two collections from the foreign countries. Both the collections are of great importance. First, the collection of the Central Asian antiquities donated by Sir Marc Aurel Stein. A good number of Central Asian antiquities are in this section. All the objects are not on display.
The second collection of antiquities of foreign origin is the pre-Columbian Art which is also known as Mayan art, Mexican art of art of Latin America These are on display. The donor of this huge collection is Nasli Heeramaneck and his wife Alice Heeramaneck. The donation was made to commemorate Mochersh Heeramaneck, father of Nasli Heeramaneck. The collection was received by Late C. Sivaramamurti when he was the Director of the National Museum and the gallery of the collection was formally opened by the then Hon'ble President of India, Dr. Zakir Hussain.
Mr. Sujit Bhattacharya, who was my classmate while studying M.A. in the Sagar University in 1964- 65, has done a very good job by writing this monograph inspite of constrains. In this monograph, however, he has not included all the material of the collection.
Only the gold and silver works have been studied. Hope his next work will be to prepare a catalogue of this collection so that researchers get a complete picture of this collection.
National Museum authority will organize two memorial lectures to commemorate these two great donors Sir Marc Aurel Stein, the donor of the Central Asian antiquities and Nasli Heeramaneck, the donor of pre-Columbian antiquities, in the near future.
National Museum of Mexico has taken up an ambitious plan to open some galleries on the cultural heritage of some countries India is also supposed to set up a gallery there. The work of display of the proposed gallery is delayed due to some reasons. But it is hoped that it will be done soon. This will be a gallery on reciprocal basis.
I hope this monograph will be accepted by the scholars.
The collection of pre-Columbian art housed in the National Museum was donated by Nasli Heeramaneck and his wife in memory of his father Muchersha Heeramaneck in November, 1966. Mr. Nasli Heeramaneck, originally hailed from India, and after a brief period of stay in London and Paris, shifted to New York where he finally settled. He and his wife collected Indian and other art objects which eventually found a place in museums in Europe and the United States. Sometimes in the thirties Heeramaneck became interested in pre-Columbian art of the Latin American countries of the New World.
The collection of pre-Columbian art consisting of 536 art objects, which Heeramaneck had collected with great care and zeal from art markets and other sources covered a long period of thirty years. Along with the collection of art objects, the donors presented their personal reference library of books on pre- Columbian art, archaeology and monuments to the National Museum. The then Director, C. Sivaramamurti, expressed great appreciation after receiving the valuable collection of objects from the ancient cultures of the America. In this context it would not be out of place to mention writing of Russell Lynes, story in Harper's Magazine (February 1967, pp. 22) that 'there is a symmetry about his having brought the ancient arts of India here (the United States), and to have sent the ancient art of this continent to India that pleases Heeramaneck's sense of aesthetic and historic fitness.' Heeramaneck had always felt that he had made his living by selling Indian art in America and that one of the ways he could repay his country would be to give the National Museum collection of pre-Columbian art. In the same way Mrs. Alice Heeramaneck also gave a beautiful collection of rare Indian textiles to the Bharat Kala Bhawan, Banaras Hindu University, Banaras.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Heeramaneck collection is the considerable range of the ancient new world culture it encompasses, from the Western Europe to the Eastern stretches of the Mongolian steppe. It is also interesting to note the span of time ranging over five thousand years from the fourth millennium BC to the early second millennium AD.
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