Important Notice

Painted by a 10-year-old Amrita Sher-Gil, the present lot is indicative of the artist's deep interest and immense skill in painting and drawing from a young age. Sher-Gil, who had relocated to Simla along with her family from Hungary in 1921, "filled her sketchbooks with water colours" during these early years. (Vivan Sundaram ed., Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self Portrait in Letters & Writings, Volume 1, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p.... Painted by a 10-year-old Amrita Sher-Gil, the present lot is indicative of the artist's deep interest and immense skill in painting and drawing from a young age. Sher-Gil, who had relocated to Simla along with her family from Hungary in 1921, "filled her sketchbooks with water colours" during these early years. (Vivan Sundaram ed., Amrita Sher-Gil: A Self Portrait in Letters & Writings, Volume 1, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010, p. xxxviii)

The year 1923, during which the present lot was painted, was particularly important in Sher-Gil's life and artistic journey. This was the year when Italian sculptor Giulio Cesare Pasquinelli visited Simla and struck up a friendship with Sher-Gil's mother, Marie Antoinette. She commissioned him to make portraits of herself and her daughters. Sher-Gil also won her first prize for art in the same year, inspiring her mother to take her to Florence for further education in art. "Recognizing that her talent was well ahead that of a normal ten-year-old, Marie Antoinette wanted her daughter to be exposed to wider horizons and the highest levels of artistic achievement, of which Florence was the pinnacle at that time." (Sundaram ed., p. xxxviii)

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