NEW YORK.- Yesterday's sale of Indian and Southeast Asian Art Including Modern and Contemporary Art was a milestone for 20th and 21st century Indian art, establishing five new world auction records and totaling $3.7 million, the highest total ever for a session devoted to this category. The morning session saw strong bidding for the magnificent Khmer Uma sculpture which sold for nearly half a million dollar as well as for the intensely powerful schist figure of the emaciated Siddharta which at $$284,800 quadrupled its pre-sale estimate.

This sale finalized Christie's series of Asian Art sales for the spring season - an overview of the week will follow later today.

Hugo Weihe, International Director Asian Art and Head of the Indian and Southeast Asian Art department and Yamini Mehta, specialist in the department: "Today's sale was another milestone for Indian Art. The modern and contemporary section totaled $3.7 million for 94 lots, the highest total ever, and was 95% sold. New world auction records were established for Padamsee, Mazumdar, Ramachandran, Bhattacharjee, Barwe and Dodiya. The top lot of the sale was the iconic Khmer figure of Uma, offered in the morning session, which broached the half a million dollar mark while the extraordinarily powerful Gandharan schist head of the emaciated Siddharta quadrupled its pre-sale estimate."