Renowned artist Tyeb Mehta's untitled canvas depicting a falling bull has sold for a whopping Rs 15 crore at the second edition of Indian art auction held by the Christie's.
The Mehta canvas, dating back to 1999, for which the Christie's was expecting a maximum price of Rs 12 crore, got picked up through an online bid from New York. The identity of the buyer was not revealed.
Bidding started at Rs 5 crore and the price kept going up till it reached Rs 14 crore when calls with overseas buyers resulted in longish pauses, before the final bid was made.
The amount paid for the Mehta work is hammer price and excludes buyer's premium and applicable taxes.
The Switzerland-based Christie's conducted its first India art auction on December 19 last year, when it sold a work by the late Vasudeo Gaitonde for a record Rs 28 crore, the biggest price ever paid for an Indian painter's work.
The house auctioned 78 lots, down from 83 last year, including paintings, sculptures and also diaries at the auction.
Other works which fetched high price included Francis Newton Souza's untitled work depicting Indian family which got sold for Rs 7.5 crore, Tyeb Mehta's oil on canvas "Girl in Love" for Rs 3.6 crore and Syed Haider Raza's "Les Toits de la rue St Jacques" painted in Paris for Rs 3.8 crore.
Rabindranath Tagore's pocket book in Bengali having 270 leaves of manuscript notes, poems, songs, calculations, doodles and drawings fetched Rs 1.7 crore at the auction.
Other works like Gaitonde's untitled work painted in 1998 were snapped up for Rs 5.5 crore.
Mehta, who passed away in 2009, was a part of the celebrated Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, which included greats like F N Souza, S H Raza and M F Husain.
Christie's has been selling Indian art since its inception, with founder James Christie offering four India pictures painted on glass at the inaugural auction way back in 1766.
Christie's opened an office in India in 1994 and, a year later held its first stand-alone Indian art sale in London. In 2002, one of Tyeb Mehta's paintings was auctioned for Rs 8 crore, the highest price fetched by an Indian painting at a global auction till then.
As many as ten contemporary pieces donated by artists such as Subodh Gupta and Bharti Kher are also under the hammer this year, the proceeds from which will go to Khoj, the artist residency programme established in 1997.
This year's auction also includes significant works and items by some of the country's designated 'national treasure artists', which are considered of such importance to the cultural development of the country that they cannot leave the country.
Christie's is the only international art auction house to conduct annual sales in the country. It is present in 32 countries.
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