On the canvas trail
Christie's Indian art sale notches a record $3.7 million
| On March 31, Christie's sold 99 of the 104 works, while Sotheby's April 1 auction saw 49 works sold out of a total of 54. At $3.7 million, the Indian art sold at Christie's also created a history of sorts and crossed the $3 million sales mark achieved by Saffronart's December 2004 auction. |
| As the international art sale season begins in earnest, auction houses are gearing up to hold Indian art shows in New York, London and Hong Kong. |
| While Christie's, Saffronart, Sotheby's, and even Osian's "" plan to hold at least three auctions this year, rumours say international auction house Bonham's will also hold a modern Indian art auction. |
| And robust demand is pushing up the prices of works of artists such as Akbar Padamsee, Jehangir Sabavala, Chittrovanu Mazumdar beyond the high price estimate bands. |
| While the Souzas, Husains and Tyeb Mehtas remain hot property, this time Padamsee (Mirror Image) achieved a record sale of $186,000 (including the buyer's premium of 19.2 per cent), up from the $100,000 paid for his untitled work at the Saffronart auction a month ago. |
| While Saffronart's March 1 auction saw a 100 per cent sale (45 works), about half of the works got sold for twice their already high estimate prices. |
| While the Indian art market is still small (estimates vary from Rs 270-500 crore), compared to, say, the Chinese contemporary art market that is nearly five times larger, it is reportedly growing at a healthy 30-50 per cent a year. |
| Arun Vadhera, Christie's India consultant, said that the auction house is expecting to sell $10 million worth of art at its three auctions this year. |
| "Indian art is a sunrise industry. It will touch $1 billion in the next six years," he adds. Indian art entered the international auction platform in 1995 while China made an entry in 1997. |
| Keeping pace with Christie's, Saffronart expects to generate sales between $7.5 million and $8 million this year, says its co-founder Minal Vazirani. |
| For Saffronart, the average lot price has gone up from $15,000 in December 2004 to $45,000 in March 2005. Christie's average lot price has risen from $26,000 in September 2004 to $40,000 March 2005. |
| Although Sotheby's star painting "" Husain's Shatranj Ke Khiladi "" fetched a whopping $144,000, it failed to break the painter's earlier record. Saffronart had sold one of his works for $176,000. |
| At Sotheby's, several works overshot the price estimate. These include George Keyt (Couple, $45,000), Gaitonde ($48,000), Souza (Landscape, $110,000), Satish Gujral (Inder Mohan, $48,000) and Sabavala (Missile, $27,000). |
| At Christie's, prices of works almost tripled for two works of Husain and Raza's Eglise. |
| Chittrovanu Mazumdar did well in both the Sotheby's and Christie's auctions. His work Merry Go Round estimated at $15,000 sold for $54,000 at Christie's, while his untitled work estimated at $ 8,000 at Sotheby's got sold for $30,000. |
| Auction houses can take some credit for the increasing art prices. Prices go up not just because of a huge demand for a work or because of its rarity and aesthetic quality "" "Works also have to be marketed well," says Saffronart's Vazirani. |
| Last week, Christie's had 60 bidders (including written bids, telephone bids and absentee bids), and Saffronart received 100-150 online bids for its March auction. Unlike a physical bid where a bidder gets a couple of seconds to take a decision to buy, at the online sale, one can take over two days to decide. |
| In the auction trade, both the buyer and seller have to pay a commission to the auction house. "Currently, there's no law governing how much an auction house can charge," says Yogesh Jain, owner of Delhi-based Rahul & Art gallery. |
| Auction Facts |
| Hammer price: The price at which the bids end at the podium |
| Buyer's premium: To buy at Christie's and Sotheby's, be ready to shell out 20 per cent above the hammer price. Saffronart charges 10-12 per cent. |
| Seller's premium: To offload works at auctions, you have to pay 15-20 per cent to the auction houses |
| Import duty: 15 per cent |