When a Prince Chose Love Over a Crown: Inside AstaGuru's Collectors' Choice Auction

There are auctions, and then there are auctions that read like a survey of a civilisation's artistic conscience. AstaGuru's upcoming Collectors' Choice sale belongs firmly to the latter. Going live online on 22–23 June 2026, it assembles a roll-call of Indian art's most consequential names - building on the scale of an earlier Collectors' Choice showcase of modern Indian art and at its very centre sits a portrait whose backstory is almost as luminous as the canvas itself.

The Cover Lot: Raja Ravi Varma's Little Prince of Courage

Leading the sale as Lot No. 51 is Raja Ravi Varma's Little Prince of Courage, widely held to be among the finest royal portraits the pioneering master ever produced. The subject is the young Martanda Bhairava Tondaiman, Prince of Pudukkottai, rendered in full regal splendour by an artist who effectively taught India how to see itself on canvas.

But the painting's real magnetism lies in what came after. This is the prince who would one day step away from his throne to marry Molly Fink, the Australian woman he loved - a decision that defied colonial expectation and centuries of royal convention in a single, deliberate act of will. Ravi Varma, ever the keen observer of human character, captures a sitter on the cusp of that destiny. The result is less a portrait than a meditation on individuality, conviction, and the quiet courage of choosing one's own life.

A Catalogue That Maps a Century of Indian Art

What makes Collectors' Choice so compelling for serious collectors is its breadth and, increasingly, the enduring case for art as a serious investment. The sale spans museum-worthy paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by a constellation of modern masters: M.F. Husain, F.N. Souza, K.H. Ara, J. Swaminathan, Sakti Burman, Ram Kumar, Himmat Shah, Satish Gujral, Hemendranath Mazumdar, Jogen Chowdhury, K.G. Subramanyan, Dhanraj Bhagat, Ganesh Pyne, Rameshwar Broota, and Raja Ravi Varma himself — the same lineage traced in AstaGuru's ongoing exploration of Indian art's metamorphosis.

The market significance is hard to overstate: names like F.N. Souza now anchor the upper tier of Indian modernism, a status underscored when his Girl in a Yellow Sweater set a record-breaking auction result.

A particular treasure for connoisseurs is a rare group of 22 sketches by M.V. Dhurandhar, one of the most influential figures in the history of Indian academic art, an uncommon chance to acquire works by a foundational hand.

As Manoj Mansukhani, Director – Marketing at AstaGuru, frames it, the selection brings together some of the most compelling works to surface on the market in recent years. Beyond rarity and provenance, he notes, these pieces carry stories of artistic innovation, cultural change, personal conviction, and historical legacy - a catalogue assembled to honour both celebrated masterpieces and the quieter works that illuminate Indian art's lesser-known chapters, much in the spirit of earlier sales of rare works by India's modernist icons.

The Standout Lots Worth Watching

Alongside the cover lot, several pieces stand out as the kind of rare works by iconic artists that have defined AstaGuru's most celebrated Indian-art sales:

• Lot No. 33 — M.F. Husain, Savani | Des (Diptych), c. 1960. From a pivotal moment when Husain grew absorbed in the emotional and symbolic depth of Indian classical traditions, this diptych draws on the ragas Savani and Des, translating music into image through colour, rhythm, and movement. It is Husain at his most synthesising — Indian aesthetics fused seamlessly with modernist expression.
• Lot No. 9 — Ganesh Pyne, The Conversation, 1977. A defining example of Pyne's poetic ambiguity and psychological depth. In the enigmatic meeting of a skeletal woodcutter and a white bird, the work contemplates mortality, memory, and redemption, transforming the artist's private mythology into something universal.
• Lot No. 46 — Rameshwar Broota, Scripted in Time II, 1995. Part of Broota's celebrated 'Man' series, executed through his signature technique of layering and scraping paint to probe time, mortality, and human existence beyond the markers of identity and history.
• Lot No. 16 — Dhanraj Bhagat, Standing Figure, 1955. A sculptural turning point, capturing Bhagat's move from academic realism toward a distilled, modern vocabulary. The elongated female form — all rhythmic contour and lyrical balance — distils his lifelong dialogue with form, movement, and materiality.
• Lot No. 29 — K.G. Subramanyan, Figures With Mystical Birds (Diptych). Folk tradition, mythology, and modernist experiment converge here in a single, deeply personal idiom. Animated by birds, figures, and organic forms, it embodies the playful intelligence and layered symbolism that define his oeuvre.
• Lot No. 5 — Hemendranath Mazumdar, Saaqi. A showcase of Mazumdar's mastery of academic realism and his nuanced treatment of the female figure. Drawing on Persian literary tradition, the painting rises above conventional genre imagery through its introspection, luminous light, and refined technique — a reminder of why early modern Indian art retains such a devoted collector base.

How to Participate

Collectors' Choice runs online on 22–23 June 2026. Collectors and enthusiasts can explore the full catalogue and register to bid at AstaGuru's official website, www.astaguru.com. For first-time bidders, it helps to understand how the business of luxury auction houses works before raising a paddle.

In a season crowded with sales, this one offers something rarer than mere acquisition: the chance to own a piece of a story — a prince's defiance, a master's brush, and a century of Indian art rendered in a single curated breath. For the seasoned buyer, it is also a reminder of how completely fine art has matured into an asset class, one in which the wealthy increasingly leverage their art collections and India's modern masters sit comfortably among the timeless masters worth celebrating and collecting.