Good buy, or goodbye?

Khushii's record auction may not provide best value to the bidders.

"This wasn't art for investment. Don't expect these prices to rise."

That's pretty much what most collectors and gallerists are saying of the Khushii auction last week when the NGO picked up well over Rs 15 crore from a sale where money, as Ashish Anand of Delhi Art Gallery said, "literally flowed".

That auctions are the new Page 3 event was reinforced by an A-list attendance from across the country, and that prices were strong is hardly unusual given that the artists had combined with corporate heads who were also the bidders for these works.

That and charity could be the reason for the record prices collected at the auction, but collectors are sceptical about whether these prices will have much value in the market.

Take the case of the Jogen Chowdhury acrylic (with co-painter Tina Ambani) that was bid for by the chief of ITC and fetched the evening's highest price at Rs 95 lakh.

"Jogen Chowdhury is doing extremely well right now," said a gallerist, "but it is unlikely a work such as this would have fetched even half that price at a regular sale. Therefore, any additional value it will have could be for the Ambanis, but it is unlikely ITC could sell the painting any time in the next few years for profit."

Most such collaborations for the auction are unlikely to return investments, feel collectors, who say the "emotional" price is probably higher than the "intellectual" price.

"A good work by Anjolie Ela Menon, or Laxman Shreshtha is available for much less than the auction price (Rs 60 lakh and Rs 70 lakh respectively), and interventions by P Chidambaram and Ratan Tata, though significant, will not alter the return on investment drastically in the event of a re-sale."

Nowhere was this more evident than in the case of two lithographs by artists Sakti Burman and Maite Delteil, that were co-signed by actors Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan.

That these two lithos sold for Rs 35 lakh is a record that cannot be explained by collectors "" the Bachchans' signatures are not so rare, and lithos themselves have shown only limited appreciation in the past.

As an investment, therefore, these buys may not prove to be the best value, but in the context of charity, any price is too little. So.