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Sotheby’s London will conduct its first-ever auction dedicated to ‘Art from Imperial India’ on October 9. The auction will seek bids for 93 items, including paintings, illustrations, weapons, pottery and jewelled treasures that once belonged to the Deccan kingdoms, the Mughals and Tipu Sultan, among other royals.
“The sale will include works of museum quality, rarity and beauty spanning five centuries,” said a statement by Benedict Carter, a Sotheby’s Director and Head of Auction Sales, Middle East.
The auction has 11 lots relating to Tipu Sultan (1750-1799), the ‘Tiger of Mysore’. They include a sword fitted with a captured English blade. The sword was taken as booty during the storming of the fortress of Srirangapatna by the British in May 1799. Decorated with Tipu’s personal emblem, the ‘bubri’, or tiger-stripe motif, it is estimated to be worth £80,000-120,000. Among the paintings is one entitled ‘Tipu Sultan with his royal mistress’, depicting the sultan before a semi-nude woman. It is estimated to be worth £15,000-20,000.
The Mughal items include one unusual drawing called ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’. The drawing is a copy of a European print by a Mughal artist. Making such copies was apparently a popular trend in the late 16th and 17th centuries, and actively patronised by Mughal emperors and other patrons. According to the Sotheby’s statement, the drawing “was no doubt among the numerous prints of Biblical subjects taken to India by Jesuit missionaries and other European travellers, diplomats and merchants in the late 16th and early 17th centuries”.
Other items going under the hammer include an 18th Century North Indian diamond-set and enamelled gold tray and casket ( pandan ) estimated to be worth £200,000-300,000.
>rishikumar.vundi@thehindu.co.in
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