Works of Indian masters go unsold at Sotheby's

Out of the 88 lots offered at the sale of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art including Indian Miniature Paintings, 51 works went unsold last Friday. The sale realised a total of 546,800 pounds including buyer's premium.

The auction house had projected Raza's key 1971 work "La Forge" as the highlight of the sale besides Husain's "Islam" and Souza's "Woman with Mirror and Flowers".

"I can confirm that these (three) works did not sell. However, there was nonetheless strong pre-sale interest in the paintings and we anticipate that this will translate into post-sale offers for the works," Leyla Daybelge of Sotheby's told PTI.

The poor show at Sotheby's came a couple of days after Jehangir Sabavala's "Vespers" went under the hammer for 210,000 pounds (253,650 pounds with premium) - a world record for an Indian work at Bonhams.

At the Sotheby's sale, nonagenarian Raza's "La Forge" made its auction debut. It had a pre-sale estimate of 300,000-400,000 pounds.

According to the auction house, "La Forge" represents the pinnacle of Raza's career when, after some artistic experimentation, his work bore an innovative form of expression focused on the orchestration of colour. Sotheby's also hyped the work as containing Raza's defining features - mystical power of nature, elements and potency of colours, and symbols to represent the elements. MORE