Indian tax authorities were hoping for a windfall with an auction yesterday of rare oil paintings that were once part of fugitive billionaire jeweler Nirav Modi’s collection and had been seized by the government.
Auctioneers say the sale is the first of its kind in a country where tax authorities have usually auctioned property, gold and luxury items, but not art.
After a court order allowing the auction to take place, tax authorities, who are pursuing Modi over the country’s largest bank fraud, appointed professional auction house Saffronart.
Photo: AFP
The sale in Mumbai of about 68 works was expected to fetch anywhere between 300 million and 500 million rupees (US$4.4 million and US$7.3 million).
“Until a few years ago, the tax authorities really didn’t know the value of art,” said Farah Siddiqui, an art adviser acting as a consultant to clients eyeing Modi’s collection.
The 48-year-old Modi, whose diamonds have sparkled on Hollywood stars, is one of the prime suspects accused in a US$2 billion loan fraud at state-run Punjab National Bank.
Modi denies the charges and believes that they are politically motivated.
The auction was to come just weeks before a national election and as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces pressure to bring back Nirav Modi (no relation), who fled the country last year and has been residing in the UK.
He was arrested last week by British authorities and remanded in custody after he appeared before a London court. India asked Britain last August to extradite Modi.
The auction includes works by Raja Ravi Varma, a 19th century painter considered among India’s finest, and V.S. Gaitonde, a modern artist known for his abstract and often monochromatic paintings.
“We believe that the collection’s intrinsic value will garner a positive response from collectors,” Saffronart chief executive Dinesh Vazirani said.
India Law Alliance, a law firm representing the company controlled by Modi that owns the artwork, said it was challenging the court order that allowed the auction. The case is to be heard by the Bombay High Court today, a lawyer at the firm said.
Vijay Aggarwal, a lawyer for Modi, declined to comment.
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