New record for late artist Prabhakar Barwe as work fetches ₹82 lakh

Canvas Bag was created in 1990, about five years before Barwe died. Ganesh Pyne’s 1957 work Raktakarabi, meanwhile, a watercolour on paper, sold for ₹2.4 crore on Thursday, a significant hike over its reserve price of ₹40 lakh, also making it the second highest price ever paid for a Pyne work at auction.

A new record was set for the late artist Prabhakar Barwe, at the end of the two-day online spring auction by AstaGuru that concluded on Thursday. Barwe’s 1990 work, Canvas Bag, sold for ₹82 lakh (all prices are inclusive of buyer’s premium), breaking his existing record for highest price fetched at auction -- approximately ₹48 lakh for the 1986 work Existence, fetched at a Christie’s auction in London in 2018.

New record for artist as work fetchesRs 82 lakh (HT Photo)

Canvas Bag was created in 1990, about five years before Barwe died. Ganesh Pyne’s 1957 work Raktakarabi, meanwhile, a watercolour on paper, sold for ₹2.4 crore on Thursday, a significant hike over its reserve price of ₹40 lakh, also making it the second highest price ever paid for a Pyne work at auction. The highest price command by a single work was ₹9.58 crore, for an untitled work from 1963 by VS Gaitonde, while FN Souza’s Last Howl from the Cross, also from 1963, sold for ₹4.56 crore, just about meeting the reserve price.

Total earnings at the auction amounted to ₹50.28 crore, with 36 of 40 lots sold. Tushar Sethi, CEO of AstaGuru, said, “We are satisfied with the auction’s result and are pleased with the attention that critically acclaimed works garnered.”