The income tax department on Tuesday evening, 26 March, auctioned the artworks owned by the absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi for Rs 59.37 crore.
Of the gross proceeds, the department will get a Rs 54.84 crore, with the rest being the commission to the auction house Saffronart and the buyers' premium.
This is the first time that a government department has sold artworks adopting the auction-route involving a professional art-house. The department had put up a total of 68 works for auction, of which 55 got sold.
An untitled work by the abstract artist VS Gaitonde fetched a winning bid of Rs 25.24 crore, including the buyer’s premium, which however, is lower than the Rs 29.3 crore his work had fetched in 2015, making it the most expensive bid for an artwork from the country ever.
Painter Raja Ravi Varma's 1881 work depicting the Maharaja of Travancore and his younger brother welcoming Richard Temple-Grenville, and Chandos, the third Duke of Buckingham and the Governor General of Madras, got sold for Rs 16.10 crore through a phone bid.
FN Souza proved a favourite, with a number of his works being sold at the auction. Cityscape, 1974, painted a few years after he moved to New York from London, and Golly-Wog, 1958, crossed their higher estimates to sell at Rs 1.78 crore and Rs 1.38 crore, respectively.
Akbar Padamsee's Grey Nude completed in 1960 got a winning bid of Rs 1.72 crore.
The auctions took place after a special PLMA court had, on 20 March, allowed the law enforcement agencies to sell 173 paintings and 11 luxury vehicles owned by Modi, who is currently in a London jail seeking bail, which will come up for hearing on 29 March.
The auctions came in even after Camelot Enterprises, a firm owned by Modi, sent a legal notice to against the auction, terming it unlawful late last week.
"The Saffronart online art catalogue lists 68 artwork due for auctions, overlooking the fact that only 19 of the artworks from the 68 belongs to the company," said the legal notice, sent through its law firm India Law Alliance Advocates to the department.
(With inputs from PTI)
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