Indore art deco might fetch $2m

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TWO ART deco works, designed for Maharaja of Indore’s Manik Bagh palace in 1930s, are estimated to sell for more than $2 million in an auction later this month. The Indian Maharajas, in the early 20th century, started to become patrons of European avant-garde style. Art deco, the most glamorous and popular style of the 20th century, was also essentially a sumptuous and luxurious style, which essentially found expression in individually produced goods for wealthy connoisseurs, according to the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The wealthy Maharajas in British India started commissioning art deco objects and one of the first patrons of this style was Yashwant Rao Holkar, the Maharaja of Indore, who commissioned a new palace in 1930s. Rajasthan’s Umaid Bhawan palace, commissioned by the Maharaja Umaid Singh of Jodhpur, is an art deco style residence. The young Maharaja of Indore, educated in Europe, commissioned German interior designer and landscape gardener Eckart Muthesius to build, furnish and decorate his new palace in the avant-garde style.

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Giant Moti masjid painting gets $3.1m at Sotheby’s
New York: A giant painting of New Delhi’s Moti masjid, the most accomplished work of Russian artist Vasili Vasilievich Vereshcha-gin’s, fetched a whopping $3.1 million at a Sotheby’s auction here. The monumental work Pearl Mosque at Delhi — measuring approximately 13 by 16 feet — was sold on Tuesday at the auction of Russian art by the Sotheby’s. The painting depicting men kneeling for prayers at the mosque was offered by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, along with seven other works and had pre-sale estimate ranging from $3-5 million. The painting, which is inside the Red Fort in Delhi, was been put on display on October 26. — PTI