Amrita Sher-Gil’s “The Little Girl in Blue” fetched a whopping Rs 18.69 crore at Sotheby’s maiden auction in India — ‘Boundless: India’, setting a record price for the artist in the country. The 1934 artwork, a portrait of Sher-Gil’s then eight-year-old cousin Lalit Kaur Mann, was estimated at Rs 8.5 crore to 12.5 crore.
First exhibited in 1937 as part of the artist’s debut show in Lahore, it was bought by art historian Charles Fabri, and was brought back on the market after eight long decades by Sotheby’s, making it only the seventh oil painting by her to be offered anywhere.
Record price was also achieved for an untitled 1950s bronze sculpture by Sadanand Bakre. At Rs 1.88 crore, it fetched the highest price for any 20th century Indian sculpture. It was estimated at Rs 40-60 lakh. Contemporary artist Arpita Singh’s “Men Sitting, Men Standing” estimated at Rs 1.2-1.8 crore also sold for Rs 1.88 crore.
Leading the lot was Tyeb Mehta’s “Durga Mahisasura Mardini”, which sold for Rs 20.49 crore, a little above the painting’s lower estimate of Rs 20 crore. Mehta’s painting had remained in the same private collection since it was commissioned in 1993.
The auction house noted that over 75 per cent of sold lots achieved prices above their pre-sale high estimates, fetching Rs 55.4 crore.