It all started when the Hungarian Ambassador gifted a
doll to K. Shankar Pillai, a famous political cartoonist, at his annual
drawing competition. That gesture ignited a passion in Shankar for
collecting dolls. Today his International Dolls Museum in Delhi boasts
of around 6500 dolls from various nationalities cutting across all
boundaries. These costume dolls are housed in a floor area occupying
about 5,184.5 sq ft and is divided into two sections. Crafting Sections
The two sections have over 160 glass cases over 1000 feet in length mounted on walls. One section has dolls from U.S.A., New Zealand, U.K., Australia and other European countries whereas the other section has dolls from commonwealth countries, Middle-East and many other Asian and African countries. There are also special displays besides a representative collection from over 150 kinds of authentic Indian costume dolls made at the 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.
Location
The Dolls Museum is located in 1st floor of Children's Book Trust building, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi.
Coming into BeingInitially Shankar took his collection of 500 for exhibitions in various parts of the world but it was damaging the dolls. Then Indira Gandhi suggested a permanent dolls museum so that Shankar could put his energy into procuring different dolls. The museum was inaugurated in 1965 by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan and named Nehru Building after Late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Between 1965 and 1987 five thousand dolls were gifted to the museum by various people.
There is a workshop attached to the museum which hand-crafts costume dolls to precision after tedious research into looks, dresses and jewelry of each and every doll. The dolls have also won the First prize, the Golden Peacock Feather at the Dolls Biennale held in Cracow, Poland, in 1980.