MUMBAI.- Following the announcement that Christie’s third auction to be held in Mumbai on 15 December at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel will include a section dedicated to Classical Indian Art, the leading auction house announced that a monumental painting by Syed Haider Raza (b. 1922) titled Bindu from 1983, will be one of the highlights of its Modern and Contemporary Indian Art section.

A total of 100 works will be offered throughout the evening sale, and a selection of highlights travelled to New Delhi to be on public display from Saturday 28 to Monday 30 November at the Taj Mahal Hotel. Following Christie’s New York auction of Modern + Contemporary South Asian Art this September, where the world auction record for any modern Indian work of art sold at auction was set when Francis Newton Souza’s Birth sold for US$4,085,000, Christie’s third India Sale will include works sourced from important private and corporate collections.

In addition to modern masterpieces by Syed Haider Raza, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Tyeb Mehta, Maqbool Fida Husain and Ram Kumar, the auction also includes important works by artists Jehangir Sabavala, Jagdish Swaminathan, Jogen Chowdhury, Manjit Bawa, Meera Mukherjee, Nasreen Mohamedi, Bhupen Khakhar, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh and Bharti Kher. The catalogue also features works by Nandalal Bose, Abanindranath Tagore and Gaganendranath Tagore, who are designated ’National Treasure’ artists, which means their works cannot be exported from India, besides the Classical Indian Art section of the sale.

“Christie’s commitment to India has grown over the past three years and the offering of Classical Indian Art for the first time in India is part of this development plan. It will allow us to engage and advise and bring our experience and professionalism to this additional segment of the art market in India. We also are delighted to see Credit Suisse’s continued support for Indian art, and together, we are looking forward to welcome existing and new clients as well as art lovers to our two preview exhibitions in New Delhi and Mumbai”, stated William Robinson, International Head of World Art.

Mihir Doshi, Managing Director and CEO of Credit Suisse, India said: “Credit Suisse is delighted to be partnering with Christies in India. This is our third consecutive year of collaborating with Christies to bring the best of Indian art to clients, investors and collectors. It underlines our commitment to the Indian market and our support of the arts within the communities in which we are present.”

Syed Haider Raza, now aged 93, is known as a master colourist and a founder member of the post-Independence Bombay based Progressive Artists’ Group, created in 1947. Bindu was painted in 1983, a key moment in Raza’s 40-year-long association with the Indian aesthetics and geometric abstraction. The work is estimated at INR 10,00,00,000-15,00,00,000 or $1.5-2.3 million and was acquired directly from the artist by the present owner and this is the first time it is being offered at auction. Bindu demonstrates the shift in Raza’s style from expressionist to geometric abstraction, and the bindu itself represents the primordial seed of nothingness from which all creation is believed to be born. Although it is the principal around which the artist structures his canvas, this circle or bindu is less a graphical component and more the central point representing concentrated potential energy.

Manjit Bawa’s (1941-2008) Untitled (Krishna) oil on canvas was painted in the 1990s and will be offered with an estimate of INR 2,50,00,000-3,00,00,000. Bawa's paintings demonstrate a preference for economy of line and form over narrative, where extraneous detail is eliminated in favour of bold contour and monochromatic brilliant backdrops of pure horizon-less space. The influence of classical Indian artistic tradition is evident both in Bawa's poise and palette. With an almost sardonic simplicity, Bawa conjures a window into another world, revealing a realm of imagination, myth, mysticism and magic. The motif of the violet musical virtuoso suggests the god Krishna, traditionally depicted playing his melodious flute as his cows graze nearby. With only his torso visible, his eyes glance upward unerringly to the heavens. Bawa's painting creates a seductive reality where gods, men and beasts live in perennial peace in this enchanted empire. Hovering above his sacred bovine companion, the two fractured figures are unified through shimmering shades of pink found atop the beast's brow, as if reflecting in the light of his divine master.

The Casuarina Line II by Jehangir Sabavala (1922-2011), painted in 2002 is estimated at INR 1,20,00,000-1,80,00,000 and has been acquired by the present owner directly from the artist. Another work that has been sourced privately and offered for the first time at auction. This painting was exhibited as part of a major retrospective of the artist’s work at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and Mumbai in 2005-06. The Casuarina Line II is part of a series of three works that explores the effects of changing light on the land and sea at various points in the diurnal cycle. This particular canvas offers a dazzling sunset view of the uninhabited sandbar at the horizon that features in each of the works. Sandwiched between the sky and the ocean, both lit up in brilliant shades of orange and vermillion by the setting sun, this small peninsula is populated only by a group of casuarina or ironwood trees, which merge into a single entity in front of the golden orb. Evolving from detailed studies in the artist’s sketch books, his landscapes are complex constructions based on meticulous linear schema. Their horizontals and verticals, points of focus and perspective, divide and define the picture plane, bestowing the image with a sense of structure. This ‘map’ is then brought to life by the artist’s nuanced palette, which effortlessly negotiates entire families of tones and microtones to give rise to vistas that are at once restrained and emotionally charged.

Vasudeo S. Gaitonde’s radiant painting from 1995, Untitled maintains a delicate balance of light, texture, colour and space, imbuing his work with a unique lyricism and luminosity. For the artist the physical act of painting his canvases was meticulous and precise, and it was the formulation of the concept, the incubation and propagation of the painting as an idea in his own consciousness that absorbed his attention and time. With its virtually imperceptible gradations of gold and ochre pigments with blue highlights, and its enigmatic hieroglyphic forms that seem to spontaneously emerge from and disappear under the glimmering surface, this canvas provokes new discoveries with each viewing. This painting was one of the last completed in Gaitonde's small barsaati or terrace studio in Nizamuddin, before he moved to Gurgaon in 1996, and features prominently in the only film made on the artist, Art on Art, in 1995. It is offered with an estimate of INR 12,00,00,000-15,00,00,000. Gaitonde was not a prolific painter, completing only five or six deeply considered canvases a year.

Since his early years as an artist, Tyeb Mehta has used the canvas to express images that illustrate the struggles of contemporary society, and to reflect his own disillusionment with the world around him. Executed in 1981, Untitled (Two Figures) maintains remnants of the diagonal line that marked Mehta’s paintings of the 1970s. However, here the figures are allowed to exist in their entirety, without the transversal split that allowed them to adopt different forms on each side of the diagonal, giving Mehta the flexibility to explore different means of representation in a single painting. While the segmentation of the canvas is still evident in the background, it has become less obtrusive, demonstrating a maturing of the artist’s style. This important work in the artist’s oeuvre is offered with an estimate of INR 5,00,00,000-7,00,00,000.

At the heart of the miniature paintings selection within the Classical Art sale is a group that comes directly from the ancestral collections of the Maharajas of Bikaner. Very well preserved by the dry desert air, these are a reminder of how cosmopolitan Bikaner was in its heyday. Not only does the group include typical elegant depictions of Krishna and palace life, but also two paintings that clearly illustrate the direct influence of Golconda (present day Hyderabad) in the Deccan. The group also contains two fanciful depictions of Europeans that relate closely to those painted on the ceilings of the Phool Mahal in the Fort of Bikaner (estimates range from INR 2,00,000-12,00,000). Due to their age, none of the works in this section of the sale may be exported from India. Other paintings in this section include a charming Golconda-style painting of Two Courtly Ladies by Bihari and painted around 1700 (estimate: INR 5,00,000-7,00,000), there is also a double portrait of Sultan Muhammad ‘-Adil Shah of Bijapur with his Minister Ikhlas Khan, this time dated 1748/1691 AD (estimate: INR 6,00,000-8,00,000) and a fine equestrian portrait of Maharaja Kumar Sri Rai Singh as a young prince by the artist Abu Hamid, again from Bikaner and this time dated VS 1811/1754 AD and estimated at INR 4,00,0006,00,000.

One of the most important works of art offered in the classical section of the sale is a buff sandstone figure of the dancing Ganesha, the lovable and mischievous elephant-headed deity. The theme of the dancing Ganesha captivated the sculptors of Central India, resulting in the production of some of the liveliest examples between the 8th and 11th centuries. This Ganesha, from Madhya Pradesh in the 10th century, is carved with voluptuous form as well as a sense of joyful elegance and agility. This signature piece of the sale is amongst the finest of its type (estimate: INR 60,00,000-70,00,000). The sculpture section also contains a magnificent life-size early Chola granite figure of dvarapala formerly in the collection of the award-winning bharata natyam dancer Yamini Krishnamuthi, who’s devotion to art, dance and philosophy are well-known (estimate: INR 1,20,00,000-1,20,00,000). An elegant bronze figure of Parvati, a Chola-period statue made in Tamil Nadu in the 12th century, will also be among the key pieces with an estimate of INR20,00,000-25,00,000.

This extended sale offering commemorates the 20th anniversary of Christie’s presence in India. By including classical art in Christie’s third India Sale, the company will lend its international standards to this burgeoning domestic market.