A clay relief of Gandhi that was made by one Lakhamhi Khona in 1944 and signed by the Mahatma himself, has been put on sale by the sculptor’s son, Paresh Khona, a civil engineer who now lives in Vadodara. Khona has fixed the minimum price for the clay relief (which is 14 x 10 inches in size) at Rs1.5 crore, though he says he will sell it only to an Indian.
Khona told DNA that his father, a diploma holder from JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, had sculpted the clay relief at the Gandhi ashram in Wardha. “It was 1944,” Khona said. “Gandhiji had just been released from Erode jail in Pune and was on way to his ashram at Wardha. He happened to pass through our village, Khemgaon, which is in Maharashtra.”
Khona said that when the Mahatma was in Khemgaon, his father requested him to pose for him because he wanted to make his sculpture.
“Gandhiji refused as he did not have enough time but he invited my father to Wardha ashram,” Khona said. His father, Lakhamshi, went to Wardha on October 10, 1944 with two other artists, Kantibhai Patel and Bhavarlal Sevak. Gandhi told Lakhamshi at the very outset that he would not pose but if he could make a sculpture without his posing for it, he was welcome to do so.
Lakhamshi Khona made the clay relief within four hours. It was signed by Gandhiji. “My father paid Rs5 for his signature as donation for the Harijan fund,” Khona said. “It was a rule that every signature of Gandhiji should fetch Rs5 for the Harijan fund.” He claimed that Sabarmati ashram officials had approached him on Monday when they came to know about the clay work. “I told them that I will get back to them soon,” Khona added.
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