About
Faqir Khana Museum is a family-run museum in Lahore’s Walled City, housed in the historic home of the Faqir family. The family settled in Lahore in the eighteenth century, and its collection has been built over generations. Open to the public since 1901, the museum is widely regarded as one of Pakistan’s oldest and most important private collections.
The museum brings together miniature paintings, manuscripts, Islamic art, calligraphy, carpets, ceramics, coins, textiles, woodwork, and objects connected to the Mughal, Sikh, and colonial periods. Its collection reflects the many artistic traditions that passed through Lahore, as well as the family’s own long association with the city’s intellectual and political life. Several members of the family held prominent positions in the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and the museum preserves material connected to that period alongside works from earlier and later eras.
Faqir Khana is unusual because the collection remains in a domestic setting rather than a purpose-built public institution. Moving through its rooms gives visitors a sense of how art, books, objects, and family history have been kept together over time. It is a valuable place for understanding Lahore not only as a historic city, but as a centre of collecting, scholarship, and artistic exchange.
