Amrita Sher-Gil's artwork set a record for the highest price paid by an Indian artist when it sold for £6.18 million at a recent auction. Sher-Gil painted the piece, titled "The Story Teller," in 1937. The sale was organised by the auction firm SaffronArt at The Oberoi in New Delhi. This auction occurred ten days after the modernist Syed Haider Raza's artwork "Gestation," sold for £5.17 million at the Pundole auction house. The great artist wanted to investigate the world of household life in "The Story Teller," according to a page devoted to the artwork on SaffronArt.
"The sale of this particular work is an important milestone in the market. However, equally important, is the work itself - it is an exceptional painting as a cornerstone in Sher-Gil's work as such. She is one of India's national art treasures, and this type of work is quite rare to come across for sale," said Minal Vazirani, the auction house's co-founder.
Sher-Gil's works have been auctioned 84 times. Her oldest auction was recorded on MutualArt for the artwork Village Group, sold at English auction house Sotheby's as early as 1992.
In 1913, she was born in Budapest. Her father, Umrao Singh Sher-Gil, was a scholar of Persian and Sanskrit who came from an aristocratic family in Punjab. Her mother Marie Antoinette was an opera singer who was of Hungarian descent.
Sher-Gil showed interest in painting and drawing at the age of five. Her early works, in watercolours, showed vibrant illustrations of Hungarian fairy tales with captivating characters. The artist died in 1941, at the age of 28.