City Palace, Royal palace and museum in Jaipur, India
The City Palace is a palace and several museums in Jaipur, India, where large courtyards are surrounded by multistory buildings with open colonnades. The entire site combines tall sandstone entrance gates with wide galleries and halls decorated with ornate wall paintings.
Construction began in 1727, when Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II moved his court from Amber to the new city of Jaipur and built the outer wall of the complex; the palace was completed in 1732. It served as the ceremonial and administrative seat of the Jaipur rulers until 1949, and its gates were added across the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
The palace remains the home of the Jaipur royal family, and the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum is run by the MSMS II Museum Trust under chairperson Rajamata Padmini Devi, with Princess Diya Kumari as secretary and trustee. Families who served the kings for generations work as guides in the complex.
Visitors should come early in the morning to avoid large groups and wear comfortable shoes because the paths between buildings are long. Some areas do not allow photographs, so it helps to watch for signs.
In one hall stand two enormous silver vessels that once carried water from the Ganges to England so a maharaja could remain ritually pure during a journey. The vessels are among the largest silver objects in the world and each weighs several hundred kilograms.
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