The Financial Express (Delhi Edition)
Amrita Sher-Gill work fetches R4.75 cr in Saffronart auction
New Delhi, June 10: An untitled landscape painted by Amrita Sher-Gill sold for R4.75 crore ($720,000) at Saffronart’s online auction, which fetched a total sales of R20.65 crore ($3.12 million), auctioneers said today.
Sher-Gil’s Untitled (Zebegeny Landscape) led the sale against a pre-sale estimate of R3.9 crore to R5.2 crore ($ 600,000 – 800,000).
Sher-Gil was the country’s foremost woman artist, whose brief career spanning just over a decade had a deep impact on Indian art. Made in 1931, the landscape was painted during a summer holiday she spent in the Hungarian village of Zebegeny on the banks of the Danube.
An Untitled work (after Titian’s Venus of Urbino and Manet’s Olympia) by F N Souza sold for R1.22 crore ($ 186,000) compared to a presale estimate of R1.1 -1.3 crore ($170,000 – 200,000).
Subodh Gupta’s stainless steel installation, sold for R1.10 crore ($ 168,000), against an initial estimate of R99lakh to R1.3 crore ($150,000 - 200,000).
S H Raza’s ‘Horizon’, sold for over R1 crore ($153,000) against an estimate of R66 lakh to R99 lakh ($100,000 – 150,000).
Nearly 24% of the lots sold above their upper estimates.
Two paintings by Ghulam Rasool Santosh almost tripled their upper estimates of R5.28 lakh ($8,000) and R3.3 lakh ($5,000) to fetch winning bids of R14.65 lakh ($22,212) and R10.89 lakh ($16,500), respectively.
K K Hebbar’s 1959 painting ‘Tile Factory’, almost doubled its upper estimate of R23 lakh ($ 35,000), selling for R40.78 lakh ($ 61,800).
Lot 57, Biren De’s 1968 oil on canvas ‘The Moment’, also tripled its upper estimate of R7.92 lakh ($12,000) fetching a winning bid of R24.9 lakh ($ 37,800).
Among the contemporary Indian artists, there was strong demand for works by Sudarshan Shetty and Chintan Upadhyay.
Shetty’s 2005 acrylic on canvas, sold at R14.72 lakh ($ 22,309) against a pre-sale estimate of R6-8 lakh ($9,095 – 12,125).
“We were delighted to see very active international bidding, including bids placed via our mobile platform.
“There were many rare pieces with unusual history and at various attractive price points, so we are very gratified by the broad appeal it generated,” Hugo Weihe, CEO, Saffronart said. PTI