London, 21 May 2026 - Bonhams concluded a successful series of three live auctions at its New Bond Street saleroom this May and June, presenting masterworks across Islamic and Indian Art (21 May 2026), Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art (2 June 2026), and Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art (4 June 2026).
Nima Sagharchi, Group Head of Middle Eastern, Islamic and South Asian Art, commented: "This series of sales achieved strong results across all three categories, reflecting continued global interest in works from these regions. The auctions brought together an exceptional range of objects, from important historical material to museum-quality modern paintings and demonstrated the enduring appeal of both traditional and contemporary artistic practices. We were particularly pleased to see strong performances across the sales, with notable works resonating with collectors and reaffirming the depth and dynamism of these fields."
ISLAMIC AND INDIAN ART
21 May 2026, live auction at New Bond Street
The top-performing lot of the sale was Rustam Slaying a Dragon in a Rocky Landscape, a Mughal work dating to circa 1580, which achieved £68,980.
Another standout was a large painted wood mask of Bhairava from Nepal, dating to the Malla period (16th century), which sold for £57,550. Carved with a prominent third eye and adorned with crawling snake jewelry and a crescent moon set within flaming hair, the mask represents Bhairava, the fierce manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva. Masks of this scale are not worn but are instead displayed during annual festivals.
Completing the selection of highlights was a collection of steel Quoits, regimental turban ornaments (pugri), a gajgah and other accoutrements of the Sikh Akali-Nihang, all mounted on a wooden shield. Made in the Punjab in the late 19th to early 20th century, they sold for £25,600. The collection belonged to George Burnett Abercrombie Rind (born 1880), an officer who served with the 33rd Punjabis and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. After retiring from the army in the early 1920s, Rind returned to Wales and built Allenbrook, his home in Dale, Pembrokeshire, where he displayed his Indian artifacts. Although the exact ancestor who acquired the Sikh objects is unknown, they are documented on the walls of Allenbrook, mounted on the same shield, in a family photograph dated 1947, attesting to their long standing preservation within the collection.
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIAN ART
2 June 2026, live auction at New Bond Street
The sale performed strongly, realizing a total of £2,183,882.
Leading the highlights of the sale was The Breakthrough by Jehangir Sabavala (1922 to 2011), estimated at £300,000 to 500,000, which sold for £483,000. This work represents a seminal moment in the artist's career, in which his painterly language coalesces with striking clarity and conviction. Executed at a pivotal juncture, the painting brings together many of Sabavala's defining characteristics, restrained geometry, a profound sense of meditative stillness, and a nuanced orchestration of tonal relationships, resolved here with a renewed sense of purpose and formal confidence.
Also featured was Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar's (1911 to 1996) Untitled (Krishna Tames Kaliya Nag), estimated at £100,000 to 150,000, sold for £190,900. Hebbar's oeuvre is distinguished by its synthesis of Indian classical and folk traditions with the formal and philosophical concerns of twentieth-century Western modernism. Drawing on the Hindu mythological episode of Kaliya Mardan, the work depicts the moment in which Lord Krishna subdues the venomous multi-headed serpent Kaliya Nag, who had poisoned the waters of the Yamuna River at Vrindavan. As the legend recounts, Krishna dances upon the serpent's many heads, compelling him to retreat and thereby restoring balance and harmony to the land.
Maqbool Fida Husain's (1915 to 2011) Untitled (Shiva, Parvati & Ganesh) sold for £381,400 against an estimate of £300,000 to 500,000, while his Untitled (Horses) achieved £241,700, surpassing its estimate of £100,000 to 150,000.
Further highlighting the sale is Francis Newton Souza's (1924 to 2002) Ancient City, estimated at £15,000 to 20,000 which sold for double the high estimate at £44,800. The work demonstrates Souza's distinctive synthesis of classical discipline and the vibrant dynamism characteristic of his early practice. The cityscape is rendered with medieval features, densely packed buildings, fortified walls, and towers crowned with spire-like roofs, articulated through tightly defined geometric black outlines that lend the composition a strong sense of formal precision. Rooted in European modernist traditions yet unmistakably individual in style, the composition conveys subtle movement and vitality; buildings appear animated and gently shifting, while tilting trees contribute to the work's underlying sense of rhythmic energy.
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY MIDDLE EASTERN ART
4 June 2026, live auction at New Bond Street
The sale performed very well, amassing a total of £2,953,830.
Leading the sale was Huguette Caland's Girl Skipping Rope (1998 to 2000), estimated at £150,000 to 300,000, a monumental and deeply personal painting from the artist's final period, sold for £245,400. Offered from an important private UK collection, the work is among four highly significant Caland pieces to appear in the sale. Girl Skipping Rope stands as one of the most ambitious and emotionally layered works of her later career, in which memory, desire and autobiography converge with extraordinary candour. The painting formed one of the centrepieces of Caland's major museum retrospectives in Madrid and Hamburg and relates closely to key works exhibited in her landmark Beirut exhibitions.
A highlight of Lebanese modernism, Saliba Douaihy's Bay of Akkar, estimated at £50,000 to 80,000, represents one of the most important transitional works of the artist's career. This piece achieved over the estimate at £104,540. Painted at a moment of artistic breakthrough, the work captures Douaihy standing on the threshold between landscape and abstraction, no longer tentatively approaching modernism but confidently embracing its possibilities. Preserved for decades in the collection of the artist's nephew and appearing on the market for the first time, this coastal landscape is both exceptionally fresh and a major document of Douaihy's passage from observed nature to pure form.
Two highly significant paintings by Fahr El-Nissa Zeid were presented, each estimated at £20,000 to 30,000, both formerly in the collection of the artist's personal assistant. Both works exceeded expectations. Cataclysm, a powerful and meaningful work from Zeid's late 1950s oeuvre and the first painting listed in the brochure for her landmark 1957 solo exhibition at London's Lord's Gallery. This work sold for £48,640. The second Zeid highlight, Bayezid Mosque (Bayazıt Camisi), is a rare and evocative view of the Bayezid II Mosque, situated on the historic square the artist famously drew to acclaim in 1945, this work achieved an incredible £89,300. Dating from the 1940s, the painting stands apart within Zeid's oeuvre as a rare figurative architectural vision from a period increasingly dominated by abstraction, further enhancing its significance within her body of work.
Completing the selection was Marwan Kassab Bachi's Untitled (No. 105), estimated at £4,000 to 6,000, offered from the collection of Timothy Egert of Washington DC, which sold for an incredible £66,440. A compelling example of Marwan's introspective approach to the human condition, the work reflects the psychological intensity that define the Syrian artist's distinctive figurations.
(Press Release)
