Rs10 crore for Indian artwork?

After sports, it’s India Shining this year end, art-wise too! In an auction by online fine-art auction house Saffronart that will showcase the works of 43 modern and contemporary Indian artists at its annual winter auction, female artist — Arpita Singh’s work is estimated to fetch a staggering Rs 8-10 crore (US$ 1.9-2.3 million). It is the highest estimated work by an Indian woman artist to ever be offered in auction.

Titled Wish Dream, the 24 feet x 13 feet mural is said to arise out of the artist’s complex oeuvre spanning more than four decades. Elated over the news, Delhi-based Singh says, “The mural shows the wishes and dreams of a woman within our society and how it progresses and how it’s related to other women through ritual. The most important ritual is a wedding, so you’ll find a woman standing and from behind, two hands of a man holding her. I don’t like to keep space empty, so I fill it up with objects I see everyday. When I gather everything together, the whole pattern is meaningful. Individual forms are not very important to me.”

CEO and co-founder of the auction house, Dinesh Vazirani says, “It is the rarity of the work that determines its value. This is one of the most significant and largest works by any woman artist at any auction ever. It’s not a work that any artist will do again in their lifetime.”