An adventure with the great Indians masters

Saffronart’s upcoming 25th anniversary auction brings together rarely seen works by some of the pioneers of modern Indian art under one roof

- Somak Ghoshal

In 2000, when Minal and Dinesh Vazirani founded Saffronart, India’s first online marketplace and auction house, their friends and well-wishers were confounded. “Everyone said, are you crazy? No one is going to buy art online,” Minal Vazirani recalls. A quarter century later, as Saffronart prepares to host the 25th anniversary of its live flagship auction in New Delhi, the Vaziranis seem to be having the last laugh.

Following a preview at The Oberoi in New Delhi on 25 September, the live auction of the current lot, estimated at a total value of ₹157-214 crore, will take place on 27 September. At the centre of this bouquet of modernist masterpieces are five precious lots from what was once the Jean and Krishna Riboud collection. These include an abstract painting having an affinity with figurative shapes, in gradients of yellow, by V.S. Gaitonde (estimated at ₹18-24 crores), a dense and dark Akbar Padamsee (₹5.5-7.5 crores), and a couple of M.F. Husains (₹3-5 crores and ₹1.8-2.4-crores respectively). One of the latter, titled Floating Figure, painted in the 1970s, is in striking contrast to his signature horses.