LONDON.- In order to celebrate the rich traditions of Indian and Islamic art, Sotheby’s has mounted ‘Indian and Islamic Week’, a high profile series of public exhibitions and three dedicated auctions presenting the works of renowned artists and craftsmen from the Indian Subcontinent and the Islamic world. These exciting initiatives will take place at Sotheby’s in London from 3 - 8 October 2014. The sales comprise Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art on 7 October, and Art of Imperial India and Arts of the Islamic World on 8 October. The combined estimate across the three sales is £11,200,000-16,000,000.

Yamini Mehta, Sotheby’s International Director, Indian and South Asian Art, Benedict Carter, Sotheby’s Head of Auction Sales, Middle East and Indian Art, commented: “We are thrilled that Sotheby’s reach with its clients from across India, the Middle East and beyond will advance to a new stage this autumn when we mount the inaugural ‘Indian and Islamic Week’ in London. Through this endeavour, featuring the very best of fine and decorative arts from India and the Islamic World spanning 1500 years, the company’s unrivalled global network continues to serve our clients by providing world-class collecting and educational experiences. We are proud that with this series of three dedicated sales, we will further demonstrate Sotheby’s ability to enhance the growing dialogue of cultural exchange across these regions.”

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIAN ART 7 OCTOBER 2014
Sotheby’s India and Islamic Week will present Tyeb Mehta’s Blue Painting, 1982, an exquisite work painted in overlapping planes of complementary blues. The classic image of the female body, depicted with an economy of line, radiates calm and transcendence, with its blues of the sea, sky, and night in a composition that is pure harmony in azure, cerulean, and sapphire. Inspired by international artists as varied as Barnett Newman, Kazimir Malevich, Henri Matisse and Yves Klein, during Mehta's years abroad in the 1950s-60s, this is a rare and contemplative painting that is a departure from his themes of suffering and angst. Yet it still is an exploration of the human condition in its most elemental form. This key work by the towering Indian modernist was once owned by Tyeb Mehta's friend and fellow Mumbai artist, Bal Chhabra. Chhabra was a great patron who financially supported his artist friends and created a fine personal collection that included some of India's greatest masterpieces. Blue Painting has since been in the famed collection of the Glenbarra Art Museum in Japan. It is estimated at £600,000-800,000.

Priyanka Mathew, Head of Sales and Auctioneer, Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art, Sotheby’s, notes, "The poetic drama and beauty of Blue Painting, 1982, has an immediate visual impact, that becomes all the more awe-inspiring when viewed in person. As the auctioneer for the sale, I feel deeply privileged to have guided Blue Painting into Sotheby's and hope that collectors the world over will appreciate its beauty and fight to own it."

Another milestone in the history of Modern Indian art is Padamsee's Prophet I, 1952, estimated at £150,000-200,000. This painting is the first from the artist's revered “prophet” series, which evolved with each successive edition. A year earlier, the artist had moved to Paris, where he was inspired by the art he saw in the city’s galleries and museums, and influenced not only by the Modern masters – Picasso, Rouault, Braque and Chagall – but also by tribal works of art, and in particular the African masks that he saw in the Musée de l'Homme. This is the first time the work has come to the market, having remained in private hands since shortly after it was completed. Professor Gyenes, a patron of the arts who lived in Paris during the 1950s and 60s, acquired the painting directly from the artist in 1954.

The auction is sprinkled with delightful works coming from private collections that are completely fresh to the market. The William and Mildred Archer Collection comprises two works by Indian National treasure, Rabindranath Tagore and a group of 15 Kalighat paintings. The Archers were pre-eminent Indian art historians of the twentieth century with William Archer serving as a longstanding curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A rare Jamini Roy work on canvas, depicting Krishna with a parrot and estimated at £15,000-20,000, comes with the storied provenance of writer, E.M. Forster. Originally handled by famed London dealer, Victor Musgrave at his Gallery One, are two powerful works by Francis Newton Souza. Souza is the intellectual founder of the Progressive Art Group post-Independent India. Profile, 1957 (estimate £80,000-120,000) and Head (estimate £50,000-70,000) are two prime examples of the artist’s work at the peak of his career coming from British collections.

Contemporary artists of today are also featured with significant examples of works by Pakistani artists, Rashid Rana and Imran Qureshi as well as British Indian artist, Bharti Kher. Mrinalini Mukherjee’s hemp sculptures are difficult to source. Only one other has ever appeared at auction. Sotheby’s is proud to showcase Deity, a larger than life-sized work from a French collection and estimated at £60,000-80,000. The artist is in the collection of the Tate Museums and is currently being featured in the 10th Gwanju Biennial.

ARTS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD 8 OCTOBER 2014
Bringing together manuscripts, paintings and works of art created under Islamic patronage over eleven centuries, Arts of the Islamic World provides an opportunity for collectors and institutions to acquire beautiful and sought-after pieces.

From the collections of the Dukes of Northumberland is an extremely well- preserved leaf from a 16th-century copy of Sa’di’s Gulistan, attributed to the famed courtly artist Mahmud Muzahhib. Depicting ‘the captured Arab robbers before the King’, this rare discovery is estimated to bring £60,000-80,000.

Also from the collections of the Dukes of Northumberland at Alnwick castle and never before offered at auction is the unparalleled Arabic-English Lexicon of Edward William Lane, estimated at £200,000-300,000. This copy in forty volumes represents the monumental achievement of almost half the lifetime of the pioneering Egyptologist and eminent Orientalist. Still in production at the time of Lane’s death in 1876 after thirty-four years’ dedication, it is a truly remarkable work of scholarship that has yet to be surpassed in the realms of lexicography and remains an essential tool to scholars well into the twenty-first century. The accompanying ten volumes of al-Saghani's U'bab, used as source material for the Lexicon, are important Mamluk manuscripts in their own right, acquired in London on behalf of the fourth Duke of Northumberland in 1864 and placed at Lane’s disposal.

From the Ottoman come three masterpieces of the early 16th century: a royal astrolabe dedicated to Sultan Bayezid II (r.1481-1512), an extraordinary blue and white Iznik dish from circa 1520, and a beautifully-illuminated Qur’an attributed to the master calligrapher Mustafa Dede. The sale will also include a very rare oil portrait of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent by a follower of Gentile Bellini, and an exceptional 14th-century gilt-copper and silvered pyxis from the Nasrid period of Al-Andalus.

ART OF IMPERIAL INDIA 8 OCTOBER 2014
Sotheby’s Art of Imperial India sale focuses on fine paintings, jewellery, photographs and works of art from the Mughal and Rajput courts as well as the period of the British Raj. An outstanding Maharani torque necklace (hasli), Bikaner, Rajasthan, late 19th century is estimated at £250,000-300,000. India boasts an unbroken tradition in the decorative arts that can be traced back at least five thousand years. A notable spurt in the traditional jewelled arts of India took place in the late nineteenth century, a period that witnessed a marriage between the traditional craft knowledge of the Subcontinent and European fashions and taste of the time. This type of necklace derives its name from the Hindi word hansuli (collar- bone), and as indicated, rests on the collarbone of the wearer. It is a quintessentially Rajasthani ornament, though beautiful silver torques were worn in other areas across the Indian subcontinent.

From the collections of the Dukes of Northumberland is a manuscript on the romance of Jahandar Sultan and Bahravar Banu (the Bahar-i-Danish) with 118 fully-coloured miniatures, including 22 double-page scenes. This profusely illustrated copy, demonstrating the scope of Mughal book production in late- seventeenth and early-eighteenth century India, is estimated to bring £100,000- 150,000.

The sale features a magnificent private collection of 31 photo albums from the magnificent private collection of Sven Gahlin, containing over 2,000 photographs of India, Ceylon, Burma and Southeast Asia, dating from the 1850s to the early twentieth century. Apart from eight individual photographs, which were exhibited at the Photographers’ Gallery in 1983, none of the albums have ever been exhibited or seen in public since their acquisition over 40 years ago. The total estimated value of the collection is £150,000-220,000. These historically important albums belonged to some of the most influential families of British colonial history in India, including four albums from the family of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905. Ranging from stunningly beautiful images of India’s landscape and architecture, to the pomp and ceremony of colonial life, to haunting documents of the Indian famine, the collection is unparalleled as an archive of one of the defining eras of British and Asian history.