Small glowing treasures line the walls of Alvin Bellak's apartment, overlooking center city Philadelphia--his collection of meticulously detailed and brilliantly colored miniature paintings from India.

Bellak, AS '49, '50M, has been collecting these classical paintings of India for more than 26 years. All are of museum quality, from the oldest, dating from the late 14th century, to the newest, painted in the late 19th century.

Comparable in some ways to illuminated manuscripts of Christianity in its early days, the paintings were created hundreds of years ago as folios of art in the ateliers of maharajas.

Reflecting the culture, mythology, life of the ruling classes, traditional tales and legends, the miniature paintings, which are notebook size, were originally meant to be viewed individually by hand or through a magnifying glass to fully appreciate their minute detail. Gods, goddesses, corpses, lovers, demons, maidens, princes, stallions, wild beasts and the Hindu god Krishna, traditionally painted a deep blue, are depicted against stylized, intricate landscapes, backgrounds and interiors. The artists used layers of water paints and gold in their paintings and ground up lapis lazuli and other minerals for their pigments.

Bellak's collection was displayed first in the spring of 2001 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in an exhibition titled "Intimate Worlds: Masterpieces of Indian Painting from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection."

After Philadelphia, the exhibition traveled to the Frist Museum in Nashville and will soon be shown at the Seattle Art Museum.

Critics lavished praise on the Philadelphia exhibition. Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times that Bellak "had shaped a collection of distinctive beauty and historical weight," calling the exhibition "an eloquent show." Lee Lawrence in The Wall Street Journal praised the "informative display, high-quality selections and the catalog's thoughtful essays...." Edward J. Sozanski wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "'Intimate Worlds' brings to life not just India's painting tradition but its history and spiritual patrimony. The views offered might be intimate, but the cultural panorama is majestic."

Growing up in Wilmington, Del., and a graduate of Wilmington High School, Bellak received his bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from UD and his doctorate in psychology from Penn State. In 1957, he joined Hay Associates, a management consulting firm in Philadelphia that evolved into the Hay Group, an international organization with offices in 30 countries. Bellak retired after 28 years as a senior partner of the firm.

Bellak says his first real exposure to art was an art appreciation class at UD. The focus was on classical European art, and the course revealed a new world to Bellak. "It was an eye opener, and my goal was to visit Europe to see these works of art in person, which I did over the years," he says.

How he became interested in Indian art was serendipity. His former wife called him and said a local rug dealer had some pictures from India that she thought might interest him. He visited the rug dealer and began buying most of the dealer's pictures.

However, it was a kind of epiphany when Bellak visited Stuart Cary Welch, then a scholar and collector at Harvard, who shared his extensive collection of Indian paintings with him. Bellak recalls, "The pictures were brilliant, dazzling and exotic and struck such a deep emotional chord that I could not stay and had to leave."

The experience crystallized Bellak's desire to become a serious collector of Indian miniature paintings and to buy only the best quality paintings and those that appealed to him personally. Bellak developed his eye and judgment, working with art dealer Terence McInerey and forming a friendship with the late Stella Kramrisch, the curator of Indian art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The result is his extensive and prized collection of Indian miniature paintings. He has bequeathed them to the Philadelphia Museum of Art where he serves as a trustee, a member of the executive committee of the board and chairperson of the Indian art advisory committee.

Bellak has visited India as a tourist, but, he points out, it is now illegal to take these paintings out of the country, so he relies on dealers and auctions here and in London.

Although the paintings Bellak collected are centuries old, they all are painted on paper. He was never able to locate the even older paintings of the Jain period, which were painted on palm. When one appeared on the market, the Philadelphia Museum of Art purchased it and presented it to him in appreciation for his service and generosity to the museum.

--Sue Moncure