Indian art at international auctions
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
2018
Hemendranath Mazumdar, Sunayani Dev, manuscripts
Naomi Canton, World auction record for a Mazumdar, June 14, 2018: The Times of India
Sales of Indian art at international auction house Christie’s in London have totalled Rs 12 crore (£1,350,000) in a single day.
The “Arts of India” sale at Christie’s London brought in £1,350,000 and the South Asian Modern and Contemporary Arts sale, which featured many Indian artists, totalled £4,526,500 (Rs 41 crore), making a sales total of Rs 53 crore (£5,876,500) on Tuesday. The sale takes place just twice a year, once in New York and once in London.
A world auction record was achieved for “Abhiman (Wounded Vanity)”, by the late Bengali painter Hemendranath Mazumdar, which sold over 15 times its pre-sale estimate at £548,750 (Rs 5 crore) on Tuesday, and a world record price was achieved for “Untitled (Krishna)”, by the late Bengali painter Sunayani Dev, which achieved £8,750 (Rs 8 lakh).
The top-selling lot was an illustrated manuscript of the Ramayana of Tulsi Das, made around 1795, signed by Ramcharan Kayasth, Jaipur School, north India. This manuscript attracted several bidders and was sold for £212,500 (Rs 2 crore) against a pre-sale estimate of £30,000-50,000.
A previously unseen sculpture by Ravinder Reddy, “Untitled (Goddess)”, an example of the artist’s now iconic representations of deified Indian women, estimated at £25,000-35,000, sold for £100,000 (Rs 90 lakh) in the South Asian sale.
The outsize reclining figure of a nude had been left by Reddy at Goldsmiths College in the early 1980s where he had studied as an exchange student.
“It was a very busy salesroom with much activity on the phones and from online bidders. Top prices were achieved across the sale from the early Bengal school, modernist landscapes to contemporary artists,” said Damian Vesey, head of the South Asian modern and contemporary Art London sale.
The next series of sales in this category will take place in New York in September, for which there will be a viewing of highlights in Mumbai on August 21 and 22. Christie’s is the only international auction house to have a permanent presence in India.