[intro]78% of lots sold totaling USD $4.3 million[/intro]
Saffronart held a sale of 100 lots this week and had a solid showing for Indian Modern works and a few Contemporary stars:
- Competitive bidding activity sees 62% of the sold lots exceeding their high estimates
- Modernists lead the sale with top prices achieved for Manjit Bawa, F.N. Souza, S.H. Raza, J Swaminathan, Akbar Padamsee and Tyeb Mehta
- A world record price in auction was achieved for artist Manjit Bawa
The top five lots sold in the auction were
- Manjit Bawa’s ‘Untitled’ at USD $362k ~ upper estimate of USD 196k
- M.F. Husain’s ‘Untitled’ at USD $294k ~ upper estimate of USD 180k
- Subodh Gupta’s ‘Untitled’ at USD $253k ~ upper estimate of USD 196k
- F.N. Souza’s ‘Profile of a Woman’ at USD $216k ~ upper estimate of USD 60k
- S. H. Raza’s ‘Temple’ at USD $181k ~ upper estimate of USD 60k
Saffronart was quick to tout it’s iPhone application as key factor in the bidding. Here’s an excerpt from their press release:
This auction marked the debut of Saffronart’s auction application on the iPhone. Saffronart is the only fine-art auction house globally to offer a mobile bidding application for devices such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia phones […]. Bids (including underbids) totaling Rs 4.8 crores (over USD 1 million) were registered at this auction. In addition a large number of customers used the application to track the auction while on the move.
