F N Souza's painting for 16.8 crore tops Saffronart auction

NEW DELHI: Modern Indian painter F N Souza's oil-on-masonite artwork titled "Man and Woman Laughing" sold for approximately Rs 16.84 crore ($ 2.5 million) topping the 15th anniversary auction here by Saffronart.

The sale held here late last evening featured 75 lots of some of the most sought after names in modern and contemporary Indian art and posted total sales at approximately Rs 82 crore ($ 12.7 million) 97 per cent lots sold.

Four lots including that of Souza's achieved world record prices, organisers said.

Other lots that achieved world record prizes were a fibreglass sculpture by Ravinder Reddy titled "Devi" that sold for approximately Rs 2.7 crore ($ 415,385), another lot "Untitled (Dreaming Girl)" by Sailoz Mukherjea went for Rs 10,80,000 ($ 16,615) and one by Nilima Sheikh titeld "River: Carrying Across, Leaving Behind" was sold for Rs 1.02 crore ($ 156,923).

An "Untitled (Standing Figure)" oil on canvas by Tyeb Mehta fetched approximately 11.51 crore ($ 1.77 million). The artwork had earlier been auctioned at the Sotheby's New York auction in 2007.

An acrylic on canvas by S H Raza was sold for approx. Rs 4.8 crore ($ 738,462). A luminous untitled work (Metascape) by Akbar Padamsee was the fourth most expensive work after Souza, Mehta and Raza, to be sold in the auction and went under the hammer for approximately Rs 4.2 crore ($ 646,154).

Two more works by Padamsee -- "Paysage" and "Delta" followed them by being sold for Rs 3.84 crore ($ 590,769) and Rs 3 crore ($ 461, 538) respectively.

An Untitled ( Acrobat) by Manjit Bawa went under the hammer for approximately 2.04 crore ($ 313,846) while two Untitled works by M F Husain were sold for approximately Rs 2.16 crore ($ 332,308) and appproximately Rs 1.56 crore ($ 240,000) respectively.