Private Indian collections lead Christie’s fourth annual Mumbai sale, including works from the Poddar Family Collection, Royal Court Paintings collected by Colonel R.K. Tandan and bronzes from the Collection of Sohrab K. Bhedwar
On 18 December The India Sale will take place for the fourth consecutive year in Mumbai. Around 150 lots will be offered, including 71 lots of Classical Indian Art, which was introduced as an auction category for the first time last year.
The Classical Painting half of the auction features Royal Court paintings as well as Classical sculptures and is led by 42 court paintings from the collection of Colonel R.K. Tandan, dating from the 15th to the mid-19th century, and bronzes collected by Mr. Sohrab K. Bhedwar, architect of Mumbai’s Art Deco-style Eros Cinema.
Colonel R.K. Tandan’s (1921-2009) passion for Indian art was cultivated by his father, a well-known art critic. The family home in Allahabad was open to poets, writers and artists, including the likes of Amrita Sher-Gil and Nicholas Roerich. Works by Roerich, the Russian-born painter, writer and philosopher, feature in the Modern Masterpieces section of The India Sale.
Sohrab K. Bhedwar was a renowned architect who put together one of India’s leading 20th-century collections of Classical Indian Art. Over the course of three decades he assembled a museum-worthy collection that included exquisite South Indian bronzes, Nepalese copper images and Tibetan sculptures, as well as sculpture from Gujarat, Rajasthan and the Deccan.
Please note, all works in the Classical Indian Art section are registered antiquities and are therefore non-exportable.
The India Sale will be led by the private art collection of Abhishek and Radhika Poddar. Forty-one works chart the collecting career of a family who have provided friendship, patronage and creative freedom to some of India’s leading artists, including Tyeb Mehta, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Ganesh Pyne, Meera Mukherjee and Bhupen Khakhar.
Among the group are seven lots designated as ‘National Treasures’, and which cannot therefore be taken out of India. Each lot comes with an immaculate provenance, either acquired directly from the artist or from leading gallerists, including Kekoo Gandhy of Gallery Chemould.
The auction will be held at The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai. Credit Suisse continues to be Christie’s partner in India.