To know where we’re headed, we must know where we came from.

Tracing our beginnings through the browning pages of history, there’s an inexplicable sentimentality that comes with a love of antiquity. It's almost like salvaging the treasure from a once-lost shipwreck - a fragment of the past - that now carries with it the pernicious rust of age and time. Yet, some treasures persevere; preserved and untouched. They are our lessons in survival.

Celebrating the halcyon days of India’s glory and preserving the totems of our freedom lost and found, is Saffronart’s upcoming auction, ‘Passages to India: A Journey Through Rare Books, Prints, Maps, Photographs, and Letters’. Exhibiting rare and antiquarian documents covering subject matter ranging across architecture, social life, military history, the Imperial Durbars, religion, textiles and more, the auction is segmented into 93 carefully curated lots that chronicle India’s passage through the 18th and 19th century.

The new Indian, in my humble opinion, is one who nurtures an appreciation of the past while still looking to the future; one who is able to draw new analogies to cultivate a paradigm shift in how we see ourselves. As for the occasional skeptic of history as we know it, what better than very real and palpable relics that live on to narrate their story in their very own words? Minimal mediation needed.

And, in its very own words, amidst the expansive catalog of this auction is ‘A Typewritten Letter From M. K. Gandhi to Dr. Behram Navroji Khambhatta’. Dated April 1928 and signed by Mahatma Gandhi, this letter bears witness to very real lives lived and lost.

Also present within this diverse collection is the work of one of the foremost proponents of Swadeshi values in Indian Art, Abanindranath Tagore. With ‘No,9’ on its front cover, 'Chitrakshar' by Tagore is one among the 200 limited edition copies - a lesser known album of the Bengali alphabet with each letter besetting animated illustrations.

For those of you drawn helplessly to the allure of the original, this auction also exhibits the first edition of the ‘Constitution of India dated 1950’. From the first book on Sikhs ever published in English dated 1812, to a first edition translation of the Bhagavad Gita, dated 1749 - 1836, this auction is a one-stop portal through time.

With its pioneering success in creating a strong market for contemporary Indian art and aesthetics, Sadfrongart was founded in 2000 by Minal and Dinesh Vazirani. As a leading homegrown international auction house, Saffrontart hopes to bring transparency to the auction process and make information and material more accessible to collectors around the world.

For those of you with a penchant for time travel, and the ability to invest in the rich tapestry of our historical becoming, the auction will take place online via the Saffronart website on the 24th and 25th of July, 2024, alongside the opportunity to view each lot in person from the 19th of July, 2024 to the 25th of July, 2024, at Saffronart’s Mumbai gallery. And for those of you wondering what end does this past we inherit serve? I suppose that is for you to reckon with.

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