New York, November 04: Russian artist Vasili Vasilievich Vereshchagin’s painting of an Indian mosque has fetched $3.1m at Sotheby’s auction held in New York, US.
The masterpiece, which is 3.9 meters tall and 16 4.8 meters wide, features men kneeling in prayer at New Delhi’s Pearl Mosque also known as the Moti Masjid.
One of the artist’s most significant works, The Pearl Mosque painting was created between 1876 and 1879 and belongs to Vereshchagin’s Indian series, the state-funded BBC reported.
The artwork, which was offered to the auction by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston along with seven other works, was estimated to fetch 3 to 5 million USD.
“We are thrilled to offer this true masterwork from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts,” said head of Sotheby’s Russian paintings department Sonya Bekkerman.
Visitors to Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries got the chance to see the painting, which was set inside the Red Fort in Delhi, India, from October 26, 2011.
——Agencies