Osian's Auction Catalogue The Masterpieces and Museum Quality Series | October 2004

OSIAN ’ s–CONNOISSEURS OF ART 38 12 Sardar Gandha THAKUR SINGH [1899-1976/ b . Verka, Amritsar, Punjab] Dal Lake of Kashmir S/d in English l.l. Oil on board, 1967 46.0 x 61.2 cm (18.1 x 24.1 in) Rs. 300,000 – 400,000 $ 6,500 – 8,650 £ 3,550 – 4,725 13 Manchershaw F. PITHAWALLA [1872-1937/ b . Surat, Gujarat] Parsee Lawyer S/d in English l.l. Oil on canvas, 1934 120.5 x 95.5 cm (47.4 x 37.6 in) Minor restoration work has been carried out by Kayan Pundole (Mumbai) in September 2004. Rs. 1,000,000 – 1,250,000 $ 21,600 – 27,000 £ 11,825 – 14,800 ‘There is no technical freakishness in his art; no interposing of what is called self-expression between the subject matter and the beholder. To Hamlet, “the play’s the thing,” to Thakur Singh, “the picture’s the thing”…Thakur Singh has a gift of selection, arrangement and reserve in colouring that bears its testimony to his own vital and individual sensitiveness and delicacy of response to the visible world, and his joy in the unsophisticated depiction of beauty. “His work has a fineness of execution that makes it cousin-brother to the Rajput and Mughal era of Indian painting.” – James H. Cousins, rpt. in Glimpses of India . Calcutta: The Punjab Fine Art Association. 1929. M.F. Pithawalla is today acknowledged as one of the great portrait painters of India.