The Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh, owes its existence to the partition of the country in August,1947. It is one of the premier institution of India with a very rich collection of Gandharan sculptures, Pahari and Rajasthani miniature paintings. Before the partition in 1947, the collection of art objects, paintings, sculptures and decorative arts, were housed in the Central Museum, Lahore the then capital of Punjab. On April 10, 1948, the division of collection took place by which sixty percent of objects were retained by Pakistan and the remaining forty percent collection consisting mainly of Gandharan sculptures and Indian miniature paintings ( Mughal and Pahari schools) fell in the share of India. Received in the month of April,1949, this collection was first housed in Amritsar then Shimla, Patiala and finally shifted to Chandigarh.