Amrita Sher-Gil portrait fetches record $2.9 million

The price is a record for both the artist as well as any Indian female painter

A rare self-portrait by Amrita Sher-Gil has sold for $2.92 million in Sotheby's New York auction, setting a new record for an Indian woman artist.

Sher-Gil's oil-on-canvas masterpiece fetched the highest total $2,920,000, well over the $1.2 - $1.8 million estimate for a South Asian Art sale at Sotheby's since 2007, auctioneers said in a statement today.

Born in Budapest to an Indian Sikh father and Hungarian mother, Sher-Gil painted the portrait in 1932 when she was 19. It is one of the very few of her canvases that are in private circulation outside India. 

Sotheby's two sales of Indian Art on March 17-18, raked in a total of $16,632,875, comfortably exceeding estimates.

Auctioneers said the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art sale brought in $10,589,000, the highest total for a Sotheby's sale in the category since 2007 and a 60% increase on the equivalent sale last season, a result that was largely driven by the entry of several major new collectors into the market.

Yamini Mehta, International Head of Indian and South Asian Art at Sotheby's commented, "These sales were ground-breaking for Indian and South Asian Art at Sotheby's."

"...The appearance at auction of a work by Amrita Sher-Gil is an historic event and so it is fitting that it led our best sale result in a decade," she said.

Priyanka Mathew, Head of Sales of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art at Sotheby's New York added, "It was thrilling to be the auctioneer for the historic Sher-Gil painting which fetched close to $3 million.

"The price is a record for both the artist and also for any Indian female painter. The spirited bidding on the 'Self-Portrait' came from three continents and lasted over ten minutes to result in a landmark price," she said.

At the same auction an oil-on-canvas by V S Gaitonde fetched $2,290,000 followed by an untitled work by Jagdish Swaminathan from his bird tree and mountain series, which went under the hammer for $2,290,000.

A Rabindranath Tagore self untitled portrait went to an European private buyer for $225,000.