Works of masters like M F Husain, Jamini Roy and Manjit Bawa will feature in a unique auction here next month that celebrates animals in Indian and Asian fine arts, antiquities, crafts, books, prints, photographs and films.
The Osian's Group's first "All Creatures Great and Small" series auction will be held at the Tao Art Gallery here on December 2 with an opening preview exhibition on November 21.
Among the highlights of the auction is a rare Sherratt-style Staffordshire Ceramic of 'The Death of Monroe' modelled after the famous 'Tippoo's Tiger' automaton originally owned by the Tiger of Mysore Tipu Sultan.
Two Kawari-Kabuto (helmets) from the medieval 17-18th century Edo (Tokogawa) period Japanese Samurai tradition and two important 18th century Tibetan Thangkhas on the 'Heruka' theme, formerly from the Jucker Collection, New York will also go under the hammer.
There are rare first edition 19th century antiquarian illustrated books on zoology, parrots, birds, insects, angling, snakes, oriental sports including rare prints by John Gould among the lots.
Modern Indian artists of Focus are The Ravi Varma Presses, Husain, Roy, Bawa, Abanindranath Tagore, Nikhil Biswas, Prokash Karmakar, Ganesh Pyne, J Sultan Ali, Nagji Patel, K Laxma Goud, Jyoti Bhatt, Amit Ambalal, Rekha Rodwittiya, among others.
Rare original sci-fi Hollywood film posters of "Under the Red Sea" (1952), "The Deadly Mantis" (1957), "The Angry Red Planet" (1960) and "Jaws 2" (3 Sheeter; 1978) and some items of memorabilia from Indian cinema are also among the lots.
"... From Osian's and myself, a simple auction and catalogue, with no charitable intent, but simply a celebration on various aspects of the animal-human unity, which will hopefully encourage others to reflect and maybe consider volunteering their efforts to build a better world for animals," says Neville Tuli, chairman of Osian's Group.
"Today nurturing art appreciation through its aesthetics, history and creative values is so much easier than it was 15 years ago. It will be the same for poverty alleviation. Any true developmental mind recognises the tangential benefits of fighting smaller battles to prepare for the larger war," he adds.
