That collector base has pushed up prices to the extent that the top of the modern Indian art market generally rivals the very tip of the art world: A 1972 work by abstract painter Sayed Haider Raza sold for $4.5 million at Christie’s in March 2018.
The Sale
A piece by Raza appears in the de Boer sale; at a high estimate of $35,000, the work on paper probably won’t break any records.
Estimates in the live sale range from $500,000, for a rare, abstract work by Akbar Padamsee, to just $3,000 for a 1946 drawing of a seated nude by Francis Newton Souza. Prices in the online sale go even lower: A lush, 19th century painting of the Punjab Hills carries a high estimate of $1,200.
“One of the themes of our collecting journey is that we’ve gone down the highways, as well as the byways,” says de Boer. “Many of the works we love aren’t the most valuable.”
The auction, he says, isn’t just about clearing house or making a return. He hopes the sale will help boost the market.
“We want to show that this can be much more than another alternative to pork belly or gold ingots, and an auction can do that,” he says. “I hope that people will get excited.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.