The domed entrance hall of the great museum in Mumbai, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), is an exhilarating anthology of India’s architectural styles — Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic, combined with just a dash of British railway gothic. Built around 1910, it sums up in stone much of the history of South Asia.
Normally it leads the visitor swiftly into the neighbouring gallery of Indian sculpture. But for most of next year, it will have a different role. It now houses fragments of two of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and statues of gods from Egypt, Greece and Rome, selected by CSMVS curators from the collections of the Getty Museum, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the British Museum. They will be on show there until the end of October 2024. Entitled Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome, it is the first long-term display of great sculpture from the ancient Mediterranean ever to be seen in India — and the first stage of a pioneering exercise in global co-curation.
The statues of Aphrodite, Dionysus, Apollo and their companions are the outriders for a long-term partnership between the CSMVS and the three lending institutions, a joint venture in sharing collections and knowledge, all funded by the Getty Trust. (I have been an adviser to the Getty Trust on this project from the beginning.) In 2025 this partnership of museums, again funded by Getty, will bring to Mumbai, this time for three years, more than 100 objects representing the ancient world from Central America to Japan. For all involved, it is a new way of working together.