ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Record price paid for Indian painting

A private Indian collector bid a world auction record price of $ 34,500 for Abdur Rahman Chughtai's painting titled Krishna and Radha at Sotheby's contemporary Indian and South Asian paintings auction held in London on Wednesday.

The sale, a part of Sotheby's Asian week, realised $ 46,200 in all, according to a release by the premier auctioneers.

Besides Krishna and Radha five other Chughtai paintings were among the top ten paintings to be sold. Two paintings of M F Husain, and one by K K Hebbar, also featured among the top ten bids.

Savita Apte, specialist in charge of the sale, said that there was a lot of new buyers actively bidding in the sale room.

Buyers at the middle end of the market represented a cross section of European and Indian collectors, and it was particularly encouraging to see a younger generation interested in contemporary paintings, she said.

The prices achieved for work by South Indian artists who had never before been sold at auction, such as Murlidharan and Jayakar, were particularly encouraging , she added.

Tell us what you think of this report