M A I N   N E W S

Tagore’s works sell as India watches

London, June 15
Despite voices of protest in India, a set of 12 paintings by Rabindranath Tagore went under the hammer here today. The works of the Indian Nobel Laureate sold for a whopping £1.6 million, massively exceeding the pre-sale combined estimate of £250,000 at a Sotheby’s auction.

One of the paintings, an untitled portrait of a woman, fetched £313,250 pounds, a Sotheby’s spokesperson said. The identity of the buyers has not been disclosed.

The sale of Tagore paintings was the highlight of Sotheby’s Annual Indian Art Sale. The auction house described the paintings as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire this standout collection by the national poet.

The art works have been housed in the Dartington Hall Trust in Devon for 71 years, since Tagore gifted them to his friends — Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst of Dartington Hall — who now decided to sell them. Tagore painted some 2,000 works in the later phase of his life, 1,500 of which are housed in Shantiniketan.

The news of the auction last month had led some art lovers and politicians in India to seek intervention by the Indian Government. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking him to take steps to bring the paintings back home as they were national heritage.

Though Culture Ministry officials were tight-lipped, it was made clear that the government could not officially bid for the paintings.

A senior ministry official was in London last week and met Sotheby's officials but they said that the country did not have any legal rights over the paintings. The government had faced an identical situation when Mahatma Gandhi's personal belongings were auctioned in New York.

Other highlights of this year’s South Asian Art at Sotheby's included an extremely rare large-scale bronze by Somnath Hore, two early figurative oils by FN Souza and two large paintings by SH Raza. — PTI