A little bit of magic

Osian's half-million dollar shopping basket bags Houdini and other great magicians.

The second part of the Christian Fehner Collection of American and English Magic in New York on Thursday night (Indian standard time) had an unusual bidder.

Neville Tuli, founder-chairman of Osian's Connoisseurs of Art, who loosened the strings on a half-million dollars on popular magic memorabilia, did it while watching Don in a movie hall in Mumbai.

An important collection, this is the first time that Osian's has bid for "magic" memorabilia for its archives.

"Magic, myth, religion and spirituality are part of our consciousness," explained Tuli of the reason why he spent more time peeping at the catalogue from the light of his mobile, rather than concentrate on watching Kareena Kapoor seduce Shah Rukh Khan on the big screen.

"When people realise I've paid Rs 50 lakh for a Houdini poster, it'll create excitement" "� excitement, he hopes, that will nurture the creative and cultural energies of Indian society as a whole. This, in fact, is his spoken mission: to build a great cultural institution rather than just a great corporate entity "� perhaps the reason that he has bid for Hollywood memorabilia recently, and acquired the Durrand Cup. Osian's, earlier, was known for its large collection of modern and contemporary art, and for giving the print media "� Bollywood posters, stills and so on "� popular currency.

He's most thrilled with his acquisition of two rare Houdini posters, each for $65,000 (on an estimate of $15,000 each), one of them depicting him handcuffed in an Amsterdam jail, from where he affected a break in just 15 minutes.

Two photographs that show a skimpily clad Houdini "� manacled in the first picture, and having escaped in the second "� were cheaper by far at $5,400.

Other highlights of the successful bids were a 19th century electric toy showing two monkey musicians and a conjuror ($30,000), a Barnum and Bailey's Circus poster ($3,600), and posters and images of magicians Chung-Ling Soo, Dante and David Devant.

Tuli paid $20,000 on a poster of Dante doing the great Indian rope trick, and $3,800 for another advertising the Hindu rope trick. And a further $15,000 for an image of the great magician Duval sitting in a cage, ready to be executed, before his mysterious death defying escape.

All these are hammer prices to which a 20 per cent buyer's premium and 17 per cent import duty will be added.

Tuli's great motivation? "To get leela, playfulness, joy back into popular Indian culture." He's serious.