Auction of Chandigarh heritage items in France put on hold

Chandigarh, January 28

Following an objection, the auction of as many as 40 artefacts from the city has been put on hold. The biggest-ever auction of the UT’s heritage items was scheduled to be held in France on January 29. The items were likely to fetch Rs 4.02 crore to Rs 5.74 crore.

The artefacts, designed by architects Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier and Balkrishna Doshi, include a pair of teak stools; a low chair with transversal back; two large file racks; a bamboo iron chair with cushion; a teak lounge table; two bamboo chairs; an armchair; easy chairs; a coffee table; armless chairs; a committee desk; two teak screens; a set of six floating back chairs; an office cane chair; a kangaroo teak sofa bench; a display and blue metal teak bookcase; a teak and iron chair; a pair of iron high stools; a tree trunk table; two takedown armchairs; a mobile cane seat; a pigeonhole desk; a set of four back office cane seats; a file rack; a box (student) chair; a lounge chair; a cross easy chair; a teak desk; a teak bench; and a cane seat.

Sources said after the UT Heritage Items Protection Cell filed an objection, the auction house put the event on hold for the time being.

Ajay Jagga, a member of the Heritage Items Protection Cell of the Chandigarh Administration, wrote a letter to Nathalie Chanvallon, Judicial Police Officer, Paris (France), who had visited the city last year, urging her to look into the matter in accordance with the French as well as international laws.

Jagga said during her visit to Chandigarh with a French delegation in November, they had discussed the matter of illegal sale of UT’s heritage articles and decided to share information regarding auction in France “so as to track the transactions and reach the ultimate bottom of this network”, which has taken the goods out of India, despite orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India (2011). “An auction house called Osenat in France is going to auction, perhaps one of the biggest auctions having more than 40 lots of Chandigarh articles, on January 29,” he wrote.