AN INDIAN oil painting by 19th-century artist Raja Ravi Varma has sold for a record $17.9 million at an auction in Mumbai. It is the highest price paid for a modern Indian artwork.
Mumbai-based auction house Saffronart said the painting, "Yashoda and Krishna", shows the Hindu god Krishna with his mother while she milks a cow. It is also the highest price paid for a Varma artwork at auction worldwide.
The oil-on-canvas work was auctioned on Wednesday and went well above its estimated price of $8.6 million–$12.9 million.
"It is... the highest value work by an Indian artist sold at auction globally," Saffronart said.
The Times of India reported that the painting was bought by industrialist and vaccine tycoon Cyrus Poonawala.
"This national treasure deserves to be made available for public viewing periodically," Poonawala told the newspaper, adding that he would "endeavour to facilitate this".
Varma, born in 1848, is known for using European techniques in Indian subjects.
"Painted in the 1890s, when Ravi Varma was at the height of his career, 'Yashoda and Krishna' ranks as one of the artist's most accomplished works," Saffronart said, adding that the listed "national art treasure" had been part of a private collection.
The painting "exemplifies the artist's unparalleled mastery of oil painting and his pioneering naturalistic portrayal of Indian deities that helped define how modern India imagines its sacred narratives," Saffronart said.
