Bid bid buy: Bangalore's Bid & Hammer holds first art auction

BID & HAMMER'S FIRST: The Bid & Hammer auction house did not see much success in its first ever auction.

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Keywords: Antique Furniture, M F Husain

Bangalore: The Bid & Hammer auction house in India, set up in January this year, recently held its first auction in Bangalore. It's the only auction house in India that offers antique furniture and artifacts up for the bid.

Director Bid & Hammer, Maher Dadha says, "It's an auction house for everybody, where everybody can participate. It offers contemporary art, other forms of art and also silver furniture and other collectibles."

Unlike Saffronart or Osian's which only focus on canvases and sculptures as art works, Bid & Hammer is the only Indian auction house which opens its doors to art collectors for investing in antique furniture and artifacts mostly from India, China and Burma.

At it's first auction held in Bangalore recently, the auction house made profits of Rs 2.78 crore from its painting collections and another Rs 68 lakh from antiques.

There were no records broken as the highest bid went to M F Husain's Shiva for Rs 39.73 lakh.

The highest bid from the artifacts section was on a Colonial Indian Silver Chandelier for Rs 42 lakh.

The Bid & Hammer auction house did not see much success in its first ever auction but to declare it yet as a loser in the art market is still too early. Their next auction happens in June and they soon plan to go pan India as well.

(With inputs from Neethu Reghukumar in Bangalore)