Osian's Auction Catalogue Forty Masterpieces | March 2003

Rs. 500,000 – 600,000 $ 10,400 – 12,500 £ 6,300 – 7,500 _ 9,600 – 11,500 An Egyptian Reverie Signed in English, l.r. Gouache on board, 1955 62.2 x 48.0 cm [24.5 x 18.9 in] “Roughly, till the year 1958, one notices Sabavala moving in three directions, according to his predilections: (1) exploring the Cubist idiom for a personal style and testing its strength to record his impressions of the Indian scene… (2) experimenting, again with a Cubist outlook, but attempting to discover for himself the raison d’etre of the style, and, in the process, moving beyond the limits of profiles and planes to seek through line and segments of form the substance of an inherent subject… (3) deviating entirely, at times, from the regular path he had set himself to communicate through texture and the resonances of colour as in ‘Venetian Reverie’ and ‘The Green Gorge’… [ And ‘An Egyptian Reverie/ Lot 14 ]…” (S.V. Vasudev, in Sabavala 1966; p6.) Provenance From the Osian’s collection 52 53 14 JEHANGIR A. SABAVALA [b.1922/ Bombay, Maharashtra] Please refer to b/w illustration of A Venetian Reverie [from same series as Lot 14 ] on p26 in Sabavala . Bombay: Vakil & Sons [Sadanga Series] 1966.