Classified as national art treasures, an archival lot of 35 handwritten letters with 14 envelopes that Rabindranath Tagore penned to his confiante sociologist Dhurjati Prasad Mukherji fetched Rs 5.9 crore at an online auction, possibly the second-highest price ever achieved for a single lot under Tagore’s name that had gone under the hammer over the years.The sale of the set of letters was conducted by AstaGuru Auction House between June 26 and June 27.The result is especially significant considering the lot was not a visual artwork but a manuscript-based archive and yet became the second-highest price ever achieved for a Rabindranath Tagore creation at auction, said AstaGuru’s chief marketing officer Manoj Mansukhani.The estimated price for the letters was Rs 5-7 crore.A sculpture “The Heart”, hailed as the only sculptural piece attributed to Tagore was sold for Rs 1.05 crore, significantly higher than the estimated price of Rs 55 lakh to Rs 70 lakh. The quartzite piece was crafted in 1883 when the polymath was barely 22 and was in contemplative retreat in Karwar, Karnataka. Live EventsET broke the news of Tagore’s letters and the sculpture going under the hammer in its June 21 edition.”The overwhelming response to both lots 鈥 particularly the extraordinary result achieved by the letters 鈥 reinforces the growing recognition of archival and manuscript-based material as valuable cultural artefacts. These works offer not just collectible value, but living, breathing connections to India鈥檚 intellectual and artistic heritage,鈥 Mansukhani said.Written between 1927 and 1936, the letters chronicled the creative evolution of Tagore, the first non-European Nobel winner in literature, and his deeply illuminating intellectual life. Earlier belonging to a private Kolkata-based collection, these letters are classified as non-exportable. Many of these letters are preserved through a string of publications in journals like Parichay and books like Chhanda, Sahityer Pathe, Sur O Sangati and Sangit Chinta.The letters are written on different letterheads 鈥 from Visva-Bharati, his Uttarayan residence, Glen Eden in Darjeeling, and aboard his houseboat, Padma 鈥 tracing Tagore鈥檚 intellectual and geographic journey, Astaguru said in the catalogue.(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)
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