An untitled oil-on-canvas work with four horses and a woman rider by Maqbool Fida Husain has sold for Rs 2.01 crore, the highest at the spring sale of online auctioneer Saffronart.
The auction saw 75 per cent of the lots selling for a total of Rs 20.82 crore.
A majority of the lots saw competitive bidding with 60 per cent of the sold lots exceeding their high estimates.
Several lots were sold well past their high estimates, including Akbar Padamsee’s 1953 portrait, “Prophet”, with a winning bid of Rs 1.25 crore, more than triple its higher estimate of Rs 36 lakh.
M.F. Husain’s 1970s work had a pre-sale estimate of Rs 90 lakh-Rs 1.2 crore.
“The strong results of our Spring Online Auction 2010 are an affirmation of the renewed confidence of the growing collector base for Indian art.
The results from the auction indicate a consistent demand from collectors for top quality and rare works with important provenance,” said Saffronart CEO Dinesh Vazirani.
Other notable works that sold were Subodh Gupta’s “Doot” (Rs 1.75 crore), F.N. Souza’s “Decomposing Head” (Rs 1.57 crore), S H Raza’s “Prakriti Purush” (Rs 95.7 lakh) and an untitled Manjit Bawa work (Rs 88.8 lakh).
