[1]NOBEL LAUREATE Rabrindranath Tagore’s 12 paintings sold for a combined price of almost £1.6 million at the Indian Art auction by Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday, exceeding the estimated price of £250,000 by more than six fold.
The untitled painting of a woman with bare arms got the highest price at the auction, selling for record price of £313,250 to an anonymous bidder on telephone. It had been estimated to sell for £30,000-£40,000.
The lowest price for a Tagore painting at the auction was £91,250, the price for which three of paintings sold at the sale. Another untitled portrait of a woman wearing a sari by Tagore was auctioned for £223,250, including buyer’s premium. The painting had been estimated to sell for £25,000-£30,000.
Before this auction, Death Scene sold for £144,500 in 2008 was the most expensive Tagore painting. The auction hall at Sotheby’s New Bond Street office was overflowing with bidders, with Tagore enthusiasts having travelled especially for the sale from India and Bangladesh.
The Dartington Trust had put the 12 paintings on sale to raise funds for Dartington Hall in Devon, which was set up in 1925 by Tagore’s friends Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst as a copy of the Nobel laureate’s Santiniketan experiment. The paintings had been gifted by Tagore, who had visited Dartington a number of times, to the Elmhirsts. They had never appeared on open market before this. The Dartington Hall Trust had hoped that the paintings would go back to India, but the 12-painting lot was bought piecemeal by art lovers and Tagore enthusiasts from India, Britain and Bangladesh on Tuesday.
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