Dolls Museum
¤ Shankar’s International
Dolls Museum
Curator: Shanta Srinivasan
Nehru House
4, Bahadur Shah Zafar marg
New Delhi 110002.
Open 1000-1800 hrs; Closed; Monday.
¤ Collection of Dolls From All Over The World
Set up by the renowned political cartoonist, K Shankar Pillai
(1902-1989), Shankar’s International Dolls Museum has one of the
largest collections of costume dolls anywhere in the world. Housed in
the Children’s Book Trust building on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg,
the museum has a floor area of 5,184.5 sq ft and occupies a portion of
the first floor. A separate entrance, a stately winding staircase,
leads up to a foyer. Inside, the museum is divided into two halves.
The two sections have over 160 glass cases, 1,000 ft long, mounted on
walls. One section displays exhibits from European countries, the UK,
USA, Australia, New Zealand, Commonwealth of Independent States, other
Asian countries, the Middle East, Africa and India.
¤ Main Attractions
In the pageant are characters from India’s unique classical
dance, Kathakali, with its splendid costumes. Other dolls of special
interest are Boys and Girls Festival dolls from Japan, replica Dolls
of the Queen’s collection (UK), Maypole Dance from Hungary,
Kabuki and Samurai dolls from japan, Flamenco dancers from Spain,
Women’s Orchestra from Thailand, and Kandy Pehara from Sri Lanka.
There are also special displays besides a representative collection
from the over 150 kinds of authentic Indian costume dolls made at the
dolls workshop attached to the museum. Indian dolls made at the
workshop are exchanged for gifts received from abroad as well as sold
to collectors and museums in India and abroad. Each doll is
handcrafted after meticulous research into the physical attributes,
dress and jewellery of individual characters.
The museum started with a thousand dolls. Between 1965 and 1987
another 5,000 were added – a vast majority coming as gifts. Today
the volume has increased to 6,500 exhibits from almost 85 countries,
truly giving it an international character.
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