Jaganmohan Palace & Art Gallery

Krishnaraja Wadiyar III's court began construction on Jaganmohan Palace in 1856 and completed it in 1861, giving the Wadiyar family a second residence independent of the main palace complex. The building's importance rose sharply in 1897, when fire had just destroyed the old wooden Mysore Palace: for the following fifteen years, while Henry Irwin's replacement palace was under construction, Jaganmohan Palace served as the primary royal residence and durbar hall.

Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV converted the palace into a public art gallery in 1915, opening the family's painting collection — heavy with works by Raja Ravi Varma and Mysore-school court painters — to visitors for the first time. Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar placed the palace under a public trust in 1950 as princely rule ended nationwide, enlarged the collection in 1955, and the gallery was renamed in his honour in 1980, four years after his death. The gallery's Raja Ravi Varma holdings rank among the largest such collections in South India outside Kerala, a fact regularly overshadowed by the far more visited Mysore Palace next door.

Photography is restricted inside the painting halls to protect pigments and varnish from repeated flash exposure; attendants intervene quickly if a phone camera comes out near the Ravi Varma canvases. Bags larger than a small daypack are held at a counter near the entrance rather than carried through the galleries.

Visitors are asked not to touch frames or glass-fronted display cases, a rule enforced more casually here than at the Mysore Palace next door, and school groups on weekday mornings can make the older wooden-floored rooms noisy and congested for anyone trying to read the gallery labels. Flash restrictions apply equally to camera phones and dedicated cameras, and attendants do not distinguish between the two when enforcing the rule.

Jaganmohan Palace sits 700 metres south of Mysore Palace along Sayyaji Rao Road, making it a natural add-on to a palace visit rather than a separate trip. The collection's best-known pieces are a set of optical-illusion paintings whose subjects appear to follow the viewer across the room and a musical-instrument exhibit once used by the royal household — both worth asking a gallery attendant to point out, since labelling is sparse.

The building's indoor galleries make it a useful stop during Mysuru's hottest midday hours, when the open courtyards of the main palace grow uncomfortable. Visits run shorter here than at the main palace — 45 to 60 minutes covers the core rooms — so it pairs well as a second stop after breakfast rather than a full outing on its own.