Ravi Varma’s ‘Yashoda & Krishna’ fetches record-shattering Rs 167 crore

For the Indian art market, a big shot in the arm has come from Cyrus S Poonawalla, industrialist and founder of Serum Institute of India. His landmark price for Raja Ravi Varma’s painting Yashoda and Krishna has made it the most expensive work of modern Indian art ever sold at auction, fetching Rs 167.2 crore ($18 million approx) after an intense bidding war at a Saffronart sale.

This price eclipses the record held by M F Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra), which sold for over Rs 118cr last year to Delhi-based Kiran Nadar.

Poonawalla called the acquisition both a privilege and a responsibility. “This national treasure deserves to be made available for public viewing periodically,” he said, “and it will be my endeavour to facilitate this.”

Born in 1848 into an aristocratic family in the princely state of Travancore, Varma is best known for his fusion of European technique with an Indian sensibility. Beyond the canvas, he set up alithographic press in 1894 to mass-produce his paintings as affordable prints, bringing Hindu iconography into the homes of ordinary Indians for the first time. His images of the gods remain so embedded in popular consciousness that they still shape how millions of Indians picture their deities today.

Varma’s work sells for double the estimate

Painted in the 1890s, at the height of Varma’s powers, ‘Yashoda and Krishna’ renders a tender, layered portrait of maternal love through the mythological figures of infant Krishna and his foster mother Yashoda. One of the artist’s most celebrated compositions, the painting, acquired by Cyrus S Poonawalla , had carried a pre-sale estimate of Rs 80 crore to Rs 120 crore — a figure the final hammer price more than doubled.

Saffronart president and co-founder Minal Vazirani called it a defining moment. “...This is not just a milestone for the market — it is a powerful reminder of the enduring cultural and emotional resonance of Indian art,” he said.