A painting by Raja Ravi Varma has set a new auction record for a work by an Indian artist, selling for $17.9 million.
This is reported by ArtNews.
Raja Ravi Varma's painting “Yashoda and Krishna,” dating from the 1890s, was sold at the Saffronat auction in Delhi for $17.9 million .
The sum surpassed the previous auction record for an Indian painting, set by Maqbool Fida Hussain's “Untitled (Gram Yatra)” of $13.8 million . The painting was purchased by collector Kiran Nadar at Christie's in New York last year. The sale also raised the bar for Varma's work, which had previously fetched $4.5 million . installed in 2023.
According to Artsy, the new owner is pharmaceutical billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla , founder of the Indian Serum Institute.
Safronat describes the painting “Yashoda and Krishna” as “one of the artist's most accomplished works”, in which he “interprets the universally resonant theme of maternal love through the mythological figures of the infant Krishna and his foster mother Yashoda”.
About the artist
Raja Ravi Varma was an Indian artist who lived from 1848 to 1906. He is known for his works on the Indian epics “Mahabharata” and “Ramayana”.
He painted since childhood, encouraged by his uncle. From the age of 14, Ravi Varma studied traditional Indian painting at the princely palace, and in 1863, he took lessons in European painting for a month from the British portrait painter Theodore Jensen, who was invited to the court.
In 1873, Ravi Varma participated in the International Art Exhibition in Madras, where his painting “Lady Nair at her Morning Toilet” was declared the best. The same year, an exhibition was held in Vienna, where the artist also won the main prize, after which he gained international recognition.
Ravi Varma never held the official title of Raja, but became known in Europe as Raja Ravi Varma, the Artist Prince.