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At ₹67 cr, Gaitonde becomes India's 2nd-costliest artwork
Business Standard
|September 29, 2025
Saffronart's anniversary auction fetches ₹355.77 crore, highest for South Asian art globally
Calendar 2025 is turning out to be a year of records for Indian art. At Saffronart's 25th Anniversary Evening Sale, which concluded on Saturday (September 27) in New Delhi, VS Gaitonde's untitled painting from 1970 went for ₹67.08 crore ($7.57 million), making it the second most expensive work of Indian art sold worldwide — and setting a world record for the highest price achieved by the artist at auction globally.
The reclusive Gaitonde surpassed Amrita Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller (1937) and Tyeb Mehta’s Trussed Bull (1956), which were until now tied as the second most expensive Indian artworks. Both had gone for ₹61.8 crore (approximately $7.4 million) at past Saffronart auctions — the Sher-Gil in 2023 and Mehta in April this year.
“Gaitonde is bound to break records,” Saffronart CEO and Co-Founder Dinesh Vazirani said while speaking to Business Standard. “He wasn’t very prolific, and his paintings are tough to come by.”
This story is from the September 29, 2025 edition of Business Standard.
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