Souza sells for nearly Rs 13-cr at Sotheby's London sale

The Deposition by Francis Newton Souza. Pic/Sothebys.com

New Delhi: Modernist painter Francis Newton Souza's ‘The Deposition' sold for a whopping £1,565,000 (approx Rs 13 crore) at Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Sale in London.

The 1963 masterwork is among the most celebrated works of the artist from his exhibition ‘The Human and the Divine Predicament', held at Grosvenor Gallery in 1964.

"Francis Newton Souza's ‘The Deposition' estimated at £400,000-600,000 (approx Rs 3-4 crore), achieved a spectacular £1,565,000, almost three times the high estimate," as per a statement by Sotheby's.

The sale realised a total value of £4,015,125 (approx Rs 32 crore), exceeding the pre-sale estimate of £2.7-4 million.

All of the 21 paintings from Herr Amacker collection that had not been seen since the 1970s, were also sold at the auction, with Ganesh Pyne's ‘Under the Fountain' fetching the highest price in the lot. Pyne's melancholic work from 1969 made well above its high estimate and sold for £77,500 (approx Rs 63 lakh).

"The sale result demonstrates the strength of the market internationally for this field of collecting. The sale total exceeded expectations, driven by a broad global spread of buyers from Europe, US, India and the Middle East," Yamini Mehta, Sotheby's international head of Indian and South Asian Art, said.