Sotheby's New York to Hold Sale of Indian & Southeast Asian Works of Art

Sunday, 24 August 2008 23:48

NEW YORK CITY - Sotheby’s New York will present its sale of Indian and Southeast Asian Works of Art on September 19, 2008, featuring an extraordinary selection of fine Indian Miniatures, and a broad offering of precious objects from the region, some extremely rare and all with impeccable provenance, many rarely available at auction. The sale includes 118 lots, estimated to sell for $2.3/3.2 million. The works from the sale will be on exhibit beginning September 12th.

Leading the Miniature section as its top lot is an extremely fine, museum-quality, published illustration from The Gita Govinda, Krishna and Radha In A Bower (est. $200/300,000). The Gita Govinda (Song of the Dark Lord), composed by the 12th century poet Jayadeva, is an evocative description of the courtship and love between Krishna and his paramour Radha. An inscription on the verso, from the twelfth canto of the poem, describes the passionate union between the couple as they lie on a bed of leaves, under a flowering tree. Composed as an homage to Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu the Supreme Being, the poem is meant to serve as an allegory for the soul’s longing to unite with the Divine. The Gita Govinda paintings are remarkable for the delicacy and perfection with which they are rendered. As Ananda Coomaraswamy has noted (in B.N. Goswami and E. Fischer’s Pahari Masters), “This magic world is not unreal or fanciful, but a world of imagination and eternity, visible to all who do not refuse to see with the transfiguring eyes of love.” The loving pictorial rendition of Jayadeva’s verse as evidenced in the present illustration certainly bears out the truth of this observation. The largest group of these paintings was formerly in the collection of Maharaja Manvindra Shah of Tehri-Garwhal, and it has been suggested that the album, originally comprising over 140 paintings, was executed by a first generation artist after the great masters Nainsukh and Manaku.

The selection of exceptional Indian Miniatures comprise 48 lots, many sourced from four major private collections. Works of such importance and quality have not appeared on the market since Sotheby’s offered the Paul Walter and Gloria Kat and Willard Huyck collections in 2002. One of the highlights is the cover lot, an opaque watercolor heightened with gold on paper, A Celestial Figure, India, Guler, circa 1780 (est. $20/30,000). The inspiration for this elegant celestial is possibly the Western Asiatic Winged Victory figure, which had its roots in ancient Graeco-Roman imagery from where it was transmitted into Christian art. Winged angels were particularly popular in European paintings, some of which made their way into the Mughal court and were widely admired. With the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 18th century, artists migrated to the Pahari courts, bringing with them the techniques and skills of the Mughal atelier. The present illustration was no doubt executed by an artist trained in the Mughal idiom, and epitomizes the ideal of Pahari beauty.

Another extraordinary offering comes from a private English collection, and is notable as one of the very rare instances where the artist can be identified. An Illustration From the Bhagavata Purana: Kamsa Summons the Wrestlers Chanura, Mustika and Sala (est. $30/40,000) appears to be by the hand of an artist belonging to the first generation after the master painter Manaku of Guler – Fattu, Manaku’s eldest son. Three of the five works offered from this collection, including the present lot, are inscribed ‘from the Tenth Chapter of the Bhagavata Purana’ in Devanagari characters on the verso, proving beyond doubt that they are from this series, long attributed to Fattu. Identifiable works such as these, in such pristine condition, are usually found in museums, and are rarely, if ever, seen at auction.

 Featured in the Works of Art section of the sale is a highly unusual offering from the sculptor Herbert Haseltine, a model of the monument to Jam Shri Rawalji (est. $120/180,000). While studying painting in Paris in 1905, Haseltine’s teacher, Aimé Morot, inspired him to try sculpting, and told him, according to his diary: “Some day you will go to India, where you will get your greatest inspiration.” That prediction came to fruition with the present work, after a career of sculpting a variety of animals, most notably horses (Haseltine’s best known sculpture is the 1934 life-size statue of the thoroughbred race horse Man O’War at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY).  Haseltine completed the sculpture in just thirty days, carving it out of an immense block of plaster, having it bronze cast in Brussels and shipped to India in time for the unveiling to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the reign of Maharajah Jamsaheb in early 1933.

Also featured is an andesite Head of Buddha, Central Java, 9th century (est. $200/300,000). The full, round face of the Buddha is depicted in serene meditation, the eyes half-closed, the cheeks rounded, his chin clearly defined and with the lips denoted in the usual manner of the thin top lip and fuller bottom lip forming an almost indiscernible smile. In 8th and 9th century Java, fabulous and highly accomplished monuments were being built that strongly suggested an indepth knowledge of Indian iconography and ideas. 

Also on offer is a gild copper Manjusri set with semi-precious stones, Nepal, 14th century (est. $60/80,000), a finely cast and gilded figure of the Lord of Wisdom.

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